The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common FieldsSlater, Gilbert
History
The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields
Slater, Gilbert
Agriculture -- England; Inclosures; Peasants -- England; Village communities -- Great Britain
Similar statements might be made with regard to any other county which
was mainly enclosed by Act of Parliament, as Northampton, to which
13,446 acres of common field are attributed to the non-tithe map
parishes; Lincoln, to which 10,823 acres are similarly attributed;
Berkshire, with 2705 acres; Buckingham, with 2365 acres; Cambridge,
with 2678 acres; Huntingdon, with 2336 acres; Nottingham, with 6617
acres; Oxford, with 4839 acres; Rutland, with 5726 acres, and the East
Riding of Yorkshire, with 7359 acres. For this cause alone by far the
greater part of the 97,354 acres added on to the total estimated from
tithe maps must be rejected, and of course any error of over-statement
that we find with regard to parishes which have tithe maps will still
further reduce the remainder.
(_c_) Due allowance has not been made for enclosure between the date
of the tithe apportionment and the date of the return. It is of
course very difficult to say how this could have been done without an
elaborate and expensive local enquiry, so far as relates to enclosure
without Parliamentary authority. As a matter of fact, no allowance at
all has been made for this sort of enclosure. This is justifiable;
but at least a general statement should have been made to the effect
that a very large deduction had to be made on this account in order to
obtain a correct idea of the position. Further, great carelessness was
shown even in allowing for Parliamentary enclosures subsequent to the
tithe apportionment. Thus, to take one glaring instance, 1500 acres of
common field are credited to Beddington and Wallington, near Croydon,
in Surrey. These common fields were enclosed by an Act dated 1850, and
the award, dated 1853, was at the time of the return deposited with the
Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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