Enclosure and the Changing Countryside

Enclosure was the process of turning open fields and shared common land into separate, fenced farms owned or rented by individuals. It had happened gradually for centuries, but between about 1750 and 1830 Parliament passed thousands of enclosure acts, usually at the request of large landowners. Supporters argued that consolidated farms let owners drain land, try new crops and breed better animals, raising output to feed a growing population.

Critics, then and since, pointed out that cottagers and the landless lost rights to graze animals, gather fuel and glean fields, which pushed some into wage labor or poverty. Historians disagree about how much enclosure drove people into towns: some see it as a major cause of the industrial workforce, while others stress that rural population kept rising and that population growth mattered more. Either way, enclosure reshaped the rural landscape and power within it.