Inclosure Act

Inclosure Act

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 PronEng|ɪnˈcloʊʒɚ.

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).

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.Fact|date=June 2008

ee also

* Common land
* Enclosure

Further reading

* [http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/term.php?i=18335 Thesaurus of Acts]
* [http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Parliamentary+enclosure?opendocument Parlimentary Enclosure - Surrey County Council]
* [http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=345&CATLN=2&Highlight=&FullDetails=True Archive details and description]


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Inclosure Act — Mouvement des enclosures Un acte d enclosure datant de 1793 Le mouvement des enclosures fait référence aux changements qui, dès le XIIe siècle mais surtout à partir de la fin du XVI …   Wikipédia en Français

  • General Inclosure Act — The English statute, 41 Geo. Ill, c. 109, which consolidated a number of regulations as to the inclosure of common fields and waste lands …   Black's law dictionary

  • General Inclosure Act — The English statute, 41 Geo. Ill, c. 109, which consolidated a number of regulations as to the inclosure of common fields and waste lands …   Black's law dictionary

  • inclosure — index jail Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 inclosure n. A piece of land surrounded b …   Law dictionary

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  • inclosure — n. act of inclosing; something which surrounds or confines a piece of land; piece of land which is surrounded by some barrier; something which is sent in an envelope along with a letter (also enclosure) …   English contemporary dictionary

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  • inclosure — In old English law, act of freeing land from rights of common, commonable rights, and generally all rights which obstruct cultivation and the productive employment of labor on the Land surrounded by some visible obstruction. An artificial fence… …   Black's law dictionary

  • Christchurch Inclosures Act 1802 — The Christchurch Inclosures Act 1802 was a United Kingdom local and personal Act of Parliament (42 Geo. 3 c. 43) for the dividing, allotting, and inclosing, certain commonable lands, and waste grounds within the parish or chapelry of Holdenhurst …   Wikipedia

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