19th Century Enclosure Movement
The “enclosure movement” in the 19th century encouraged a large demographic migration of people from the English countryside to city centers, speeding up urbanization.
Enclosure is the process of converting land from public ownership to private ownership through capital acquisition. Enclosure is typically a problem in countries backed by an agrarian economy because wealthy land-owners increasingly minimize the amount of arable land others can use; as a result, enclosure tends to produce a sizable class of landless farmers without capital or labor. Enclosure in England only became possible when land organization changed from a system from feudalism to capitalism. Under feudalism, land lords agreed to maintain “open space” on their manors for others to use. This historical plan of a medieval manor by William Shpererd shows the common land in green (1926, http://www.emersonkent.com/images/english_manor.jpg). Common land allowed landless laborers to still earn an income, but enclosure threatened their economic prospects by privatizing land.
The Agricultural Revolution encouraged property-holders to maximize their harvest yields, so landowners began to use their “common land” to experiment with new technology and farming techniques. Landscapes at the time, like Turner’s Crossing the Brook (1815, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-crossing-the-brook-n00497) and Contstable’s Wivenhoe Park (1816, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/highlights/highlight1147.html) glorify the bounty of the English countryside, but the opportunity to achieve such was only limited to those who held property rights over the land. Heeding the demands of the land-owning gentry, Parliament began to pass a series of “Inclosure Acts” in the 19th century to reorganize common land and profit from increased land sales. These pieces of legislation were specific to territorial regions, so enclosure happened gradually over a long period of time. For example, the 1796 Inclosure Act only authorized the privatization of common land in Sherrington, Buckingham (1796, http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/shhs/encmap.htm). Thus, there was no way for landless farmers to prepare in advance because they did not know when the land-owning proprietors in their parish or county would appeal to Parliament for enclosure.
Enclosed land reduced labor opportunities in the countryside, forcing those without property to move into the cities for work. This occurred at a time of mass industrialization, combining together to produce an era of rapid urbanization. The development of city centers can best be seen by analyzing the growth of London in the 19th century. In the beginning of the century, the city was mainly confined to the banks of the Thames River (1814, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_files/ENG/LON/luffman_lon_1814.htm). By the mid-century, after Parliament issued numerous Inclosure Acts, the city grew to include boroughs on both sides of the Thames and well into counties that bordered previous urban areas (1862, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1862_Reynolds_Pocket_Map_of_London,_England_-_Geographicus_-_London-reynolds-1862.jpg). This meant that city planning was focused in new areas to accommodate the population influx, while infrastructure in the old areas was left unattended. One of these areas would be Whitechapel, London: the site of Jack the Ripper’s canonical murders.
I am really looking forward to your connection between Jack the Ripper whose villainous behavior was exacerbated by those areas “left unattended” and how his murderous rampages influenced city planning! Also, perhaps it’s my browser and/or internet connection, but none of your links worked, they all came up with error or page not found messages.
OK, I have some questions here.
First, I wonder whether going to Parliament was quite in the tradition of usual rural politics? It seems extreme. Why would Parliament even consider a bill for a small area to enclose? And would the local people believe that such an act of Parliament would in fact be law, that it would supersede local arrangements and feudal contracts?
Enclosure would indeed be seen as the end of traditional control. Was there no recourse in local courts, or did landlords really have this much power?
I also want to ask about the connection to cities, especially London. Am I understanding you correctly that it was enclosure that forced so many to come to cities like London? Some would argue that industrial jobs combined with enclosure to force people to places like Manchester or Sheffield. I just wonder whether London had its own particular appeal to, or history of, migration prior to this.
From my understanding, parliamentary enclosure was a way for the government to reorganize common land to maximize agriculture input. Parliamentary enclosure had been going on since the Tudor dynasty (http://tudorhistory.org/glossaries/e/enclosure.html) and appears to have been undertaken as a form of agricultural policy.
Enclosure was revisited as a form of land policy in the late 18th and 19th century as the market economy strengthened. Landowners with capital from the textile industry now sought out more land to raise sheep for wool, but the only available land left was the common “demesne” land. Judging by the specific nature of the Enclosure Acts, I can only assume that the land-owning gentry in each agricultural district petitioned their MP for such act. This is just my own historical interpretation, but Parliament had an incentive to support the growing market economy because their tax base would appropriately grow.
Enclosure limited labor opportunities for the landless poor, who then traveled to urban centers for industrial jobs. Manchester, Sheffield, and London were some of these urban centers that saw a population increase during the 19th century. I would have to do more research to determine whether or not London had its own particular appeal, but enclosure in the southern lowlands must have encouraged those without property to seek employment in the newly developing industries.
I found this fact sheet that summarizes the Enclosure Acts quite nicely. Perhaps of greatest relevance are the “Causes of Increase in Enclosure” and “Number of Enclosure Acts” section: http://www4.uwsp.edu/english/rsirabia/notes/212/enclosureacts.pdf
Interesting. This implies that Parliament is doing something new-ish (always of interest to a historian) in using a local trand like enclosure to create some sort of nation-wide land policy. Sounds like a paper in itself!
So I went to find some more info. If it’s useful to you, found this in JSTOR, from the 1980s:
Wordie, J. R. “The Chronology of English Enclosure, 1500-1914.” The Economic History Review 36.4 (1983): 483-505. Web.