The Inclosure Acts were a series of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament which enclosed open fields and common land in the country. This meant that the rights that people once held to graze animals on these areas were denied. Note that although the modern spelling of the word is normally "enclosure", the Acts, other formal documents and some place names use the old spelling "inclosure". Both spellings are normally pronounced /ɨŋˈkloʊʒər/.
Inclosure Acts for small areas had been passed sporadically since the 12th century but the vast majority of them were passed between 1750 and 1860. Much larger areas were also enclosed during this time and in 1801 the Inclosure (Consolidation) Act was passed to tidy up previous acts. In 1845 another General Inclosure Act allowed for the appointment of Inclosure Commissioners who could enclose land without submitting a request to Parliament.
Under this process there were over 5,000 individual Inclosure Acts and 21% of land in England was enclosed, amounting to nearly 7 million acres (28,000 km²).
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Marxist interpretation
The Inclosure Acts encouraged many English country-dwellers to move to urban areas where they might typically become employed in wage labour jobs, thus becoming, in the terms of Marxist economics, the proletariat. In Marxist interpretation, the Inclosure Acts can be seen as a process of bringing land and people into the sphere of capitalist social relations through political force; in Marxist terminology this process is an example of primitive accumulation of capital.[1]
List
The Inclosure Act 1773 (13 Geo.3 c.81)
The Inclosure Acts 1845 to 1882 means:[2]
- 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)
See also
References
- ^ Marx, Karl (1867). "Chapter 27: Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land". Capital.
- ^ The Short Titles Act 1896, section 2(1) and second schedule
Further reading
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