John Wedge, the Board of Agriculture reporter for Warwick, says seven years later: “About forty years ago the southern and eastern parts of this county consisted mostly of open fields. There are still about 50,000 acres of open field land, which in a few years will probably all be inclosed.... These lands being now grazed want much fewer hands to manage them than they did in the former open state. Upon all enclosures of open fields the farms have generally been made much larger; from these causes the hardy yeomanry of country villages have been driven for employment to Birmingham, Coventry, and other manufacturing towns.”[49] Such information, given by the representative of an enclosure-advocating corporation, circulated among the members for correction before final adoption, is unimpeachable evidence for the particular time and place.
- [49] John Wedge, “Warwickshire” p. 40 (1793).
The rising industries of Birmingham and other Midland towns found employment, no doubt, for many of the exiles from the villages. On the whole, the ruling opinion seems to have found all this very satisfactory. The gross produce of food by these Midland parishes might be diminished on enclosure, but the net produce, as was shown by the increase of rent, certainly increased, and an abundant supply of labour was furnished for those metal working industries which were of the greatest importance in times of war.[50] When we think of the horrible sanitary conditions of English towns during the eighteenth century, of Fielding’s description of the London lodging-houses, of Colquhoun’s attempts at a statistical account of London thieves, of Hogarth’s pictures, which interpret for us the meaning of the terrible fact that right through the eighteenth century the deaths “within the bills of mortality” regularly far exceeded the births, we feel that there was another side to the shield, though possibly the sanitary and social condition of Midland towns was less terrible than that of London.
- [50] 1756–1763, 1775–1784, 1792–1815 were times of war.
The connection between enclosure of common fields and rising poor rates in the eighteenth century is illustrated repeatedly in Eden’s “Condition of the Poor.”
In Buckinghamshire we find the two neighbouring parishes of Maids Morton and Winslow. The former contained 30 acres of old enclosure, 60 to 70 acres of commons, and the rest of the parish, about 800 acres, was common field. The poor-rates in the years 1792 to 1795 were 3s. 6d., 3s., 3s., 3s. 6d. There were “several roundsmen.” Wages were nominally 1s. to 1s. 2d. per day, but piecework was general, and 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. was generally earned. The rent of farms varied from £17 to £90 per farm, and from 18s. to 20s. per acre.
Winslow contained 1400 acres, and was entirely enclosed in 1744 and 1766. Only 200 acres remained arable. The farms varied from £60 to £400 per annum each, the wages were 6s. to 7s. per week, “most of the labourers are on rounds,” and the poor rates from 1792 to 1795 were 5s. 8d., 4s., 5s., and 6s. “The rise of the Rates is chiefly ascribed to the Enclosure of common fields; which it is said has lessened the number of farms, and from the conversion of arable into pasture, has much reduced the demand for labourers. An old man of the parish says, before the enclosures took place, land did not let for 10s. per acre.” (Vol. II., pp. 27–33.)
In judging the rise of poor rate, it must not be forgotten that where the rent rises at the same time as the nominal rate, the sum of money actually raised for Poor Law purposes is increased in a greater ratio than the nominal poor rate. If, for example, by enclosure the rental of a parish is increased 50 per cent., but the poor rate doubled, the yield of the poor rate is increased threefold. And if a considerable number of labourers are driven elsewhere, the amount of destitution produced by the change is far greater even than that indicated by a threefold increase in the amount of relief given.
The latter side of the process is illustrated in the case of Deddington in Oxfordshire. Here, “the high rates in this parish are ascribed to the common field of which the land principally consists; whereas the neighbouring parishes have been enclosed many years, and many small farms in them have been consolidated; so that many small farmers with little capitals have been obliged, either to turn labourers or to procure small farms in Deddington, or other parishes that possess common fields. Besides this, the neighbouring parishes are, many of them, possessed by a few individuals, who are cautious in permitting new comers to obtain a settlement.” (Vol. II., p. 891.)