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((short description|Series of Acts that empowered enclosure of open fields and common land in England))
((Multiple issues|
((Lead too short|date=December 2023))
((More citations needed|date=December 2023))
))
((Use dmy dates|date=April 2022))
The '''Inclosure Acts'''((efn|"Enclosure" and "inclosure" are words that are frequently used interchangeably however  there is a fundamental difference between them. An "enclosure" is a physical boundary around a piece of land.  "Inclosure" is the legal term that refers to the conversion of common land into private land. All British Acts of Parliament use the term "Inclosure".<ref>((cite web|author=Staff|title=Enclosure (Inclosure)|publisher=Thomson Reuters Practical law|url=https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/Glossary/UKPracticalLaw/Ia3ab2042e6cb11e9adfea82903531a62|access-date=20 March 2024|year=2024))</ref>)) created legal property rights to land previously held in common in [[England and Wales]], particularly [[open field system|open fields]] and [[common land]]. Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 individual acts [[enclosure|enclosing]] public land were passed, affecting 28,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>.<ref>((cite web|title=Enclosing the Land|url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/landscape/overview/enclosingland/|work=www.parliament.uk|access-date=12 December 2013))</ref>

==History==
((further|Enclosure))
Before the enclosures in England, a portion of the land was categorized as "common" or "waste".((efn|The [[Domesday Book]] records various manors as waste (Latin: ''vasta, wasta''). Holdings described as waste or not in use paid no tax.<ref>((Cite web |title=Waste |url=http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/data-terminology/taxation/waste |publisher=Hull Domesday project |access-date=22 August 2019))</ref>)) "Common" land was under the control of the lord of the manor, but certain rights on the land such as [[pasture]], [[pannage]], or [[estovers]] were held variously by certain nearby properties, or (occasionally) ''in gross'' by all manorial tenants. "Waste" was land without value as a farm strip – often very narrow areas (typically less than a yard wide) in awkward locations (such as cliff edges, or inconveniently shaped manorial borders), but also bare rock, and similar. "Waste" was not officially used by anyone, and so was often farmed by landless peasants.<ref name=Clark>((Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Gregory |author2=Anthony Clark |title=Common Rights to Land in England |journal=The Journal of Economic History |date=December 2001| volume=61| issue=4| pages=1009–1036 |doi=10.1017/S0022050701042061 |s2cid=154462400 |url=http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=104888&jid=JEH&volumeId=61&issueId=04&aid=104887&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession= |access-date=12 December 2013))</ref>

The remaining land was organised into a large number of narrow strips, each tenant possessing a number of disparate strips throughout the manor, as would the [[lord of the manor|manorial lord]]. Called the [[open-field system]], it was administered by [[court baron|manorial courts]], which exercised some collective control.<ref name=Clark/> What might now be termed a single field would have been divided under this system among the lord and his tenants; poorer peasants ([[serfdom|serfs]] or [[copyhold|copyholders]], depending on the era) were allowed to live on the strips owned by the lord in return for cultivating his land.<ref name=EB>((Cite encyclopedia |title=open-field system |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429652/open-field-system/ |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. |access-date=12 December 2013))</ref> The system facilitated common grazing and [[crop rotation]].<ref name=EB/>

Any individual might possess several strips of land within the manor, often at some distance from one another. Seeking better financial returns, landowners looked for more efficient farming techniques.((sfn|Motamed|Florax|Masters|2014|pages=339-368)) Enclosure acts for small areas had been passed sporadically since the 12th century, but advances in agricultural knowledge and technology in the 18th century made them more commonplace. Because tenants, or even copyholders, had legally enforceable rights on the land, substantial compensation was provided to extinguish them; thus many tenants were active supporters of enclosure, though it enabled landlords to force reluctant tenants to comply with the process.

With legal control of the land, landlords introduced innovations in methods of crop production, increasing profits and supporting the [[British Agricultural Revolution|Agricultural Revolution]]; higher productivity also enabled landowners to justify higher rents for the people working the land. In 1801, the Inclosure (Consolidation) Act was passed to tidy up previous acts. In 1845, another General Inclosure Act instituted the appointment of Inclosure Commissioners, who could enclose land without submitting a request to Parliament.

The powers granted in the [[Inclosure Act 1773]] of the [[Parliament of Great Britain]] were often abused by landowners: the preliminary meetings where enclosure was discussed, intended to be held in public, often took place in the presence of only the local landowners, who regularly chose their own solicitors, surveyors and commissioners to decide on each case. In 1786 there were still 250,000 independent landowners, but in the course of only thirty years their number was reduced to 32,000.<ref>https://libcom.org/files/Rocker%20-%20Anarcho-Syndicalism%20Theory%20and%20Practice.pdf, p. 36.</ref>

The tenants displaced by the process often left the countryside to work in the towns. This contributed to the [[Industrial Revolution]] – at the very moment new technological advances required large numbers of workers, a concentration of large numbers of people in need of work had emerged; the former country tenants and their descendants became workers in industrial factories within cities.<ref>((Cite web |title=Enclosing the Land |url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/landscape/overview/enclosingland/  |access-date=12 December 2013))</ref>

A poem from the 18th century reads as a protest against the inclosure acts:

((Poem quote
|text=They hang the man and flog the woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
Yet let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.<br/>|source=((harvnb|Boyle|2003|pages=33–74))))

==List of acts==
*The [[Inclosure Act 1773]] ([[13 Geo. 3]]. c. 81)

The Inclosure Acts 1845 to 1882 mean:<ref>The [[Short Titles Act 1896]], section 2(1) and second schedule</ref>
((div col|colwidth=30em)) 
*The [[Inclosure Act 1845]] ([[8 & 9 Vict.]] c. 118)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1846]] ([[9 & 10 Vict.]] c. 70)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1847]] ([[10 & 11 Vict.]] c. 111)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1848]] ([[11 & 12 Vict.]] c. 99)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1849]] ([[12 & 13 Vict.]] c. 83)
*The [[Inclosure Commissioners Act 1851]] ([[14 & 15 Vict.]] c. 53)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1852]] ([[15 & 16 Vict.]] c. 79)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1854]] ([[17 & 18 Vict.]] c. 97)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1857]] ([[20 & 21 Vict.]] c. 31)
*The [[Inclosure Act 1859]] ([[22 & 23 Vict.]] c. 43)
*The [[Inclosure, etc. Expenses Act 1868]] ([[31 & 32 Vict.]] c. 89)
*The [[Commons Act 1876]] ([[39 & 40 Vict.]] c. 56)
*The [[Commons (Expenses) Act 1878]] ([[41 & 42 Vict.]] c. 56)
*The [[Commons Act 1879]] ([[42 & 43 Vict.]] c. 37)
*The [[Commonable Rights Compensation Act 1882]] ([[45 & 46 Vict.]] c. 15)
((div col end))

==See also==
*[[English land law]]
*[[List of short titles]]
*[[Primitive accumulation of capital]]

==Notes==
((notelist))

==Citations==
((reflist|30em))

==References==
* ((Cite journal|last=Boyle|first=James|title=The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain|journal=Law and Contemporary Problems|volume= 66|number= 1/2 |year=2003|pages= 33–74|jstor=20059171))

*((cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=90c0AAAAIAAJ |title=The Act for the Enclosure of Commons in England and Wales: With a Treatise on the Law of Rights of Commons, in Reference to this Act: and Forms as Settled by the Commissioners, Etc. |last=Cooke |first=George Wingrove |author-link=George Wingrove Cooke |date=1846 |publisher=Owen Richards |location=London))
*((cite book |title=Parliamentary Papers |volume=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VdUOAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA588 |page=588 |publisher=H.M. Stationery Office |date=1919))
* ((Cite journal |last=Motamed |first=Mesbah J. |last2=Florax|first2= Raymond J. G. M|last3=Masters|first3=William A.|title=Agriculture, Transportation and the Timing of Urbanization: Global Analysis at the Grid Cell Level |year=2014|journal=Journal of  Economic Growth|volume=19|pages= 339–368| url=http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters/files/2010/07/MFM_GeographyUrbanization_Rev31Oct2013.pdf |access-date=12 December 2013))
* ((cite web|author=Staff|title=Enclosure (Inclosure)|publisher=Thomson Reuters Practical Law|url=https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/Glossary/UKPracticalLaw/Ia3ab2042e6cb11e9adfea82903531a62|access-date=20 March 2024|year=2024))
*The Parliamentary Debates, Volume 80. By Great Britain. Parliament.[https://books.google.com/books?id=1AcPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR483 p. 483]
*Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 12. By Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons [https://books.google.com/books?id=BH4TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA104 104] [https://books.google.com/books?id=BH4TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA380 p. 380] 
*Edinburgh Review, Or, Critical Journal, Volume 62. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bOoEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA327 p. 327]
*The Pictorial History of England, Volume 6. By [[George Lillie Craik]], [[Charles Knight (publisher)|Charles Knight]] [https://books.google.com/books?id=vOdBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA781 p. 781]
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=ACEpAAAAYAAJ The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields]. By [[Gilbert Slater]]
*An Analytical Digest of the Reports of Cases Decided in the Courts of Common Law, and Equity, of Appeal, and Nisi Prius. By [[Henry Jeremy]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=xWRHAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA40 p. 40]
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=AR9EAAAAYAAJ%20 The Fence]. By Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company [https://books.google.com/books?id=AR9EAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT21 p. 21]
*The Contemporary Review, Volume 67. [https://books.google.com/books?id=RJLQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA703 p. 703]
*Alienated tithes in appropriated and impropriated parishes. [https://books.google.com/books?id=vEQ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA68-IA38 p. 38]

==Further reading==
*Chambers, Jonathan D. "Enclosure and labour supply in the industrial revolution", ''Economic History Review'' 5.3 (1953): 319–343 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591811 in JSTOR]
*Linebaugh, Peter. ''The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

==External links==
*[http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/term.php?i=18335 Thesaurus of Acts]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040622045916/http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Parliamentary%2Benclosure?opendocument Parliamentary enclosure – Surrey County Council]
*[http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=345&CATLN=2&Highlight=&FullDetails=True Archive details and description]
*[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b1m9b The Enclosures of the 18th Century], BBC Radio 4 discussion with Rosemary Sweet, Murray Pittock & Mark Overton (''In Our Time'', May 1, 2008)

((UK legislation))

[[Category:Lists of legislation by short title and collective title]]
[[Category:Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning England and Wales]]
[[Category:Enclosures]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1845]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1846]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1847]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1848]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1849]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1851]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1852]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1854]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1857]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1859]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1868]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1876]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1878]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1879]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1882]]
[[Category:Agriculture legislation in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:History of agriculture in England]]
[[Category:History of agriculture in Wales]]
[[Category:English land law]]

[[fr:Mouvement des enclosures]]
[[ru:Огораживания]]

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