Enclosure under the General Acts of 1886 and 1840.
In 1836 a general Act (c. 115) was passed “to facilitate the Inclosure of Open and Arable Fields in England and Wales.” By this Act two-thirds in number and value of the proprietors of lands and common rights in Arable Common Fields could appoint Commissioners for Enclosure, provided such fields were not within ten miles of the centre of London, or three miles from the centre of some town of over 100,000 inhabitants, or within certain smaller distances of smaller towns. Enclosure so effected was only recorded locally. Awards had to be deposited in the parish churches; but no confirming Act was needed. If seven-eighths in number and value of the proprietors were agreed upon enclosure, it was not necessary for them even to appoint Commissioners, if they could come to an agreement as to the redistribution of properties.
In 1840 an amending Act (c. 31) was passed, providing that persons who took possession of the allotments awarded them in enclosures under the Act of 1836 must be deemed to have waived the right of appeal from the award. The scope of the Act of 1836 was also extended to Lammas meadows.
As these Acts were in operation from 1836 to 1845, the enclosures effected by special Acts of Parliament during this period must have been greatly outnumbered by those effected during that period without being recorded by the central Government. Between 1845 and 1852 the enclosure of lands which were neither commonable all the year round nor subject to any common rights not regulated by a stint, could be effected by the Enclosure Commissioners without being reported to Parliament; but after 1852 the Enclosure Commissioners had to report all their proceedings.
Enclosure in Corn-growing and Pastoral Districts.
The arable common fields, and in consequence the commonable meadows with intermixed ownership, which were situated in districts predominantly pastoral, tended, other things being equal, to be divided and enclosed earlier than the common fields in the predominantly corn-growing districts. For this there are various reasons:—
Firstly, as may be seen from the maps of Castor and Ailesworth, of Laxton, of [Braunton] (p. 250), or of any maps of any common-field parishes, piecemeal enclosure tends to begin in the arable fields (a) close to the village, and (b) on the outermost margin of the fields. The greater the extent of the fields, the longer, ceteris paribus, will it be before piecemeal enclosure completely obliterates them.
Secondly, enclosure in a pastoral district does not arouse the same resentment and popular resistance that it does in a corn-growing district. This is easily seen from all the controversial writings of the whole period during which enclosure has been a matter of controversy, up to about the middle of the nineteenth century. It was not enclosure as enclosure that offended, but enclosure as causing, or as being intended to result in, the laying down of arable land in grass; as being, in the words of Joseph Bentham of Kettering, “the inhuman practices of madded and irreligious depopulators”[81] which robbed the king of subjects and the country of corn and cattle. Those who enclosed were “monsters of men, dispeoplers of towns, ruiners of the commonwealth as far as in them lyeth, occasioners of beggars and beggery, cruell inclosiers, whose Adamantine hearts no whit regard the cries of so many distressed ones.”[82] Such denunciation would be out of place, and the passions which gave rise to it would never have arisen, in a predominantly pastoral district, because there would be in such a district comparatively few persons thrown out of employment even if the enclosure were of the arable fields only; and because it is scarcely possible that while enclosure of the arable fields was going on, there would not be simultaneous enclosure of waste land, which would have to be repeatedly ploughed and tilled even if the intention were to ultimately convert it into permanent pasture. In other words, while enclosure in a predominantly corn-growing district is associated with “depopulation,” in a pastoral district it is associated with increased employment, increased local population, a larger production of food, and on the whole increased local prosperity. Thus, though there was a rebellion in Devon and Cornwall in 1549, the same year as Ket’s rebellion, enclosure was not one of the complaints of the rebels. And this was not because enclosure had not begun in Devon and Cornwall, because, as a matter of fact, enclosure had advanced further in Devon and Cornwall than in most other counties. The attitude of the Cornishmen is thus expressed by Carew:—“They fal everywhere from Commons to Inclosure, and partake not of some Eastern Tenants envious dispositions, who will sooner prejudice their owne present thrift, by continuing this mingle-mangle, than advance the Lords expectant benefit, after their terme expired.”[83]