Inclosure Act
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The Inclosure Acts were a number of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament which inclosed common land in the country. This meant that the rights that people once held, to graze animals on these areas when not planted by crops, were now being denied. Common usage is enclosure, but this is not the name of the acts.
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 inclosed 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 employment of inclosure Commissoners who could inclose land without submitting a request to parliament.
Under this process there were over 5000 individual inclosure acts and 21% of land in England was enclosed, this amounts to nearly 7 million acres (28,000 km²).
Among critics of these acts were the Church and the Levellers.
[edit] See also
- Kett's Rebellion 1549
- Diggers 1650
