Parliamentary enclosure and population change in England, 1750–1830

Explorations in Economic History 13,463-468 (1976)

Parliamentary Enclosure and Population Change in England, 1750-1830 MICHAEL

TURNER

University of Durham, England

In a recent issue of Explorations Philpot (1975) presents an argument concerning enclosures and demographic change in England which taken at face value seems very plausible and well thought out, but which on closer inspection rests on an incorrect portrayal of 18th and 19th century enclosures. In addition, Philpot’s statistical model is also misapplied. The argument states that because most people in England up to 1800 lived in rural areas, it is changes in the rural environment that may have dominated demographic change. This is expressed as a relationship between environmental and health improvements and a consideration of the 18th century enclosure movement. Philpot reasons that the 18th century death rate was affected by the human contraction of disease from animals. As long as they were allowed to mingle in open places disease could not be held in check, but if animal diseases could be controlled then perhaps subsequent human contraction by consuming infected meat and milk could also be controlled. According to Philpot enclosure was the method of influence, primarily through the enclosure of commons and wastes (that is, by erecting physical boundaries to separate each occupier’s animals from his neighbors). The argument depends on the extent and chronology of enclosing common and waste. On both these counts it is at fault. It states that two-thirds of all parliamentary enclosure in the 18th century was enclosure of common and waste and that the figures used from (Slater, 1907, pp. 140-147), while including open-fields mainly represent the enclosure of common and waste. This is incorrect, most parliamentary enclosure in the 18th century was enclosure of open-fields (predominantly, and in many cases exclusively, arable lands) and not of common and waste. The latter were mainly enclosed after 1790. In addition, the figures extracted from Slater in the belief that they referred to common and waste in fact refer almost exclusively to the openfields. Slater (1907, Tables, pp. 140-147, and Appendix B, pp. 268-313) is famous for omitting common and waste thus accounting for the complete lack of information for Devon, Cornwall, and Lancashire and the relative lack of it for Durham, Cumberland, Northumberland, Westmorland, and Yorkshire West and North Ridings. The revised figures (with Slater’s for comparison) are given in Table 1. The source of the confusion is clear. Philpot cites Barnes (1930), who in turn cites Johnson (1909, p. 86), who first explicitly and wrongly stated the 463 Copyright @1976 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

464

MICHAEL

TURNER

TABLE I Parliamentary Enclosure Statistics for England county

Bedfordshire Berkshire Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Cheshire Cornwall Cumberland Derbyshire Devon Dorset Durham / Essex Gloucestershire Hampshire Herefordshire Hertfordshire Huntingdonshire’ Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Lincolnshire Middlesex Monmouthshire Norfolk Northamptonshire Northumberland Nottinghamshire’ Oxfordshire Rutland Shropshire Somerset/ Staffordshire Suffolk Surrey Sussex Warwickshire Westmorland Wiltshire Worcestershire Yorkshire East Riding Yorkshire North Riding Yorkshire West Riding

UY

49.0 (46.0) 32.8 (26.0) 35.3 (34.2) 54.2 (36.3) 4.6( 0.5) 1.2( 0.0) 28.5( 1.1) 22.5 (15.9) 1.9 ( 0.0) 15.2( 8.7) 15.7( 0.7) 4.4 ( 2.2) 27.0 (22.5) 16.6( 6.4) 6.2( 3.6) 15.2U3.1) 48.8 (46.5) 0.8 ( 0.0) 7.6( 0.0) 46.7 (38.2) 40.2 (29.3) 28.7 (19.7) 5.0( 0.4) 32.5 (32.3) 52.0(51.5) 19.1 ( 1.7) 37.5 (32.5) 53.4 (45.6) 42.4 (46.5) 7.3 ( 0.3) 17.8 ( 3.5) 12.9( 2.8) 10.3( 7.5) 12.8 ( 6.4) 4.5 ( 1.9) 30.2 (25.0) 22.2( 0.6) 29.4 (24.1) 18.6 (16.5) 47.3 (40.1) 20.9( 6.3) 25.7(11.6)

et 41.5 26.0 28.9 31.0 Negligible 0.0 1.1 15.2 0.0 7.1 0.4 1.4 22.5 7.9 4.5 8.0 43.0 0.0 0.0 42.2 29.5 19.5 0.2 23.8 47.0 2.0 31.9 39.6 37.9 0.5 3.9 3.0 7.1 5.1 1.8 26.5 0.1 25.1 13.7 41.8 6.6 11.2

(3s 5.7 4.7 4.7 14.9 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.1 0.0 1.2 Negligible 0.9 2.8 0.7 0.2 4.0 5.5 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.5 1.0 0.2 1.0 2.8 0.1 1.3 10.7 4.5 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.8 0.6 0.6 1.8 0.0 1.8 I.1 2.4 0.2 0.5

(4)d 0.3 1.3 0.5 3.2 4.2 0.5 21.5 6.5 1.0 4.6 13.9 0.9 1.1 4.9 0.9 2.9 0.2 0.6 6.3 4.1 8.6 8.1 3.8 7.1 2.1 13.1 3.2 1.4 0.0 4.8 11.5 7.6 2.2 4.1 1.0 1.7 12.9 1.8 3.1 2.9 10.0 10.0

WC 1.5 0.8 1.2 5.1 0.4 0.7 5.4 0.7 0.9 2.3 1.5 1.2 0.6 3.1 0.6 0.3 Negligible 0.2 1.3 0.0 1.6 0.1 0.8 0.6 0.1 3.9 1.0 1.7 0.0 2.0 2.1 1.9 0.2 3.0 1.1 0.2 9.2 0.7 0.7 0.2 4.1 4.0

Total for England 21.4 12.9 1.2 5.5 1.8 OTotal percentage of each county enclosed by act of Parliament (the figures in parentheses are thosegiven by Slater (1907, pp. 140-147) and repeated by Philpot (1975, p. 37)). *Total percentage of common fields enclosed pre- 1830. i.e., open-field arable. ‘Total percentage of common fields enclosed post-1830, i.e., open-field arable.

ENCLOSURE

AND POPULATION

CHANGE

465

proportion of two-thirds waste to one-third commonable fields. This was an inexcusable error by Johnson because he subsequently produced a table, correctly based on Slater showing quite the opposite, that overall, two-thirds of all enclosure was for common fields and one-third for wastes and that the enclosure of waste was greatest in the 19th century (p. 90). Additional verification can be found in Gonner (1912, reprinted 1966, p. 148,279-281), Tate (1967, p. 88), and Williams (1970). Table 1 is based mainly on the work of the late W. E. Tate constructed in my capacity as editor of his manuscripts. It condenses information from ca. 5,100 enclosures out of the approximately 5,300 which were enacted. Therefore 200 enclosure acreages have been estimated and the county acreage aggregates converted into densities of enclosure expressed as density of county area. It should be mentioned that column 1, while referring mainly to open-field arable, does include some common and waste. This is because some enclosures were composite land reforms embracing the open fields, common pastures and meadows, commons and wastes and even some old enclosures. When errors and omissions have been rectified the table will still show that parliamentary enclosure was predominantly of open-field arable. To the nearest 1000 acres there were 6,817,OOO acres enclosed by act of parliament of which 4,492,OOO were predominantly open-field arable and 2,325,OOO were common and waste. In proportional terms 21.4% of England was enclosed by act, comprising 14.1% open-field and 7.3% common and waste. Of this, 12.9% and 5.5%, respectively, were enclosed before 1830. The implications that these revised statistics have with respect to the original hypothesis should now be clear. Those counties most heavily enclosed after 1750 may have been those with relatively low animal populations. Thus aggregate enclosure (of mainly arable land) may not be closely associated with changes in the prevalence of animal diseases unless it is first established what the size and composition of the animal population was in areas of parliamentary enclosure, as compared with areas of ancient enclosure. This is seemingly the subject of a major research project. Also, if common and waste is studied in isolation there is the problem that this only included 7.3% of England. This hardly seems large enough for its removal to have a demographic effect of any magnitude. In only one county was it as TABLE I-Continued ‘Total percentage of common and waste enclosed pre-1830.
466

MICHAEL

TURNER

TABLE 2 0.236 EN, (5.368)

1.

DR

=

23.563 (25.987)“

+

2.

DR

=

-9.781 (6.235)

-

0.011 EN, (0.175)

3.

DR

=

30.874 (21.872)

-

9.205 K (6.116)

R = 0.260 R= = 0.00076 +

0.038 EN, (0.789)

R= = 0.494

““t” values are in parentheses.

much as 25% of the land area and in only one other was it greater than 20%. If all counties where over 10% was common and waste enclosure are considered then the number rises to eight out of a total of 42. It is also unlikely that enclosure would curb disease on its own. The erection of a hedge or wall to separate animals does not necessarily confine disease within those walls, as the recent outbreaks and spread of swine vesicular disease and periodic foot and mouth epidemics in the British Isles testify. In addition, animals had considerable opportunities to transmit disease at the markets and on the drove roads to the markets. To examine the statistical method employed by Philpot the regression model DR = a + b EN was established, with DR as the average death rate for the period 1701- 1750 as taken from Deane and Cole (1964, p. 13 I), l and EN as the amount of unenclosed land remaining in 1750 (see Table 1) for 42 English counties for the first 42 observations, and DR as the average death rate for the period 1801-1830 and EN as the amount of unenclosed land remaining in 1830 for the second 42 observations for the same 42 counties. The equation provides the regression estimates No. 1 in Table 2 (with in all cases “2” values in brackets). The coefficient attached to unenclosed land is positive and significant at the 1% level but the low R squared suggests that very little of the variation in the death rate is explained by the decline in unenclosed land. This is essentially the same method used by Philpot, that is, taking two cross sections in time some 80-100 years apart, though in addition he inserted a dummy variable K which according to the hypothesis stood as a proxy for prevalent disease. His R squared improved considerably to 0.71 and the greater significance was attached to the coefficient of his dummy variable, K, the prevalent disease. The two models, computing two cross sections much separated by time are invalid. By casual observation the average death rate and the amount of unenclosed land both were subject to strong trends and declined over the period in question (see Table 3) and therefore one would expect a positive cor‘My thanks to an anonymous referee who points out the possibility of error in Deane and Cole’s demographic tables due to understandable problems involved in estimation.

ENCLOSURE

AND POPULATION TABLE

Decade

Time period

1740’s

1

467

CHANGE

3

Average death rate for each decade, per 1000 population” 33.0

Percentage of unenclosed land remaining in England at the end of each decade 20.9b

(-2.7)’ 1750’S

2

30.3

1760’s

3

30.0

1770’S

4

31.1

1780’s

5

28.6

1790’s

6

26.9

1800’s

7

23.9

1810’s

8

21.1

(-0.6) 20.3

(-0.3)

(-1.8) 18.5

(+l.l)

(-3.1) 15.4

(-2.5)

(-1.2) 14.2

(-1.7)

(-2.2) 12.0

(-3.0)

(-4.0) 8.0

(-2.8)

(-4.0) 4.0

(+1.5) (-1.0) 1820’S 9 22.6 3.0 ‘Source: D. V. Glass, in Glass and Eversley (1965, p. 241), which unfortunately includes the figures for Wales. bSee Table 1, Footnote f. ‘First differences from decade to succeeding decade given in parentheses.

relation to exist between them. Even if no casual relationship existed one method of dealing with the problem is to take first differences between the cross sections since it is the changes in average death rate and unenclosed land which we wish to isolate. This yields regression estimates No. 2 (negative signs because they were recorded as decreases in average death rate and the amount of unenclosed land). The coefficient for the enclosure variable is not significant and the R squared shows that we are explaining nothing about the variation in the average death rate. An alternative method of correction is to use the two cross sections as they stand but to mount them on a “plane” of comparison by attaching a time dummy variable to them. Let the time dummy K be equal to 0 in the first time period and equal to 1 in the second. This produced regression estimates No. 3. The coefficient for enclosure is not significant, not even at the 10% level, though the R squared has improved The coefficient for the time dummy on the other hand is significant at the 1% level. The comparison with the Philpot model is now complete. His dummy variable, which he assigned as prevalent disease, of course could have been labeled by any other name. The passage of 80-100 years was more important than the enclosure move-

468

MICHAEL

TURNER

ment itself. The removal of the enclosure variable from the equation hardly affects the value of the R squared at all. More extensive tables of enclosure statistics, hopefully for publication, are presently being constructed. Because of the problems outlined above we may find that these will supersede Slater’s estimates. In any case, I hope that this note has demonstrated at least to some degree one of the fundamental problems involved in the use of time-trended data. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ttie author wishes to thank the Social Science Research Council of the United Kingdom for the award of a Research Fellowship at the University of Reading during the year 1972-1973 when the major part of the research for Table I was conducted. He would also like to thank the late Marjorie Tate as executor of the Tate manuscripts, also Professor J. C. Holt, Mr. J. Thompson, and Mr. J. Edwards, Head of History, Librarian, and Archivist, respectively, in the University of Reading. He would also like to thank his colleagues in the Departments of Economic History and Economics in the University of Durham and in particular Dr. Joost Van Doorn and Mr. Adrian Darnell, who offered considerable advice and criticism. Finally, he would like to thank the anonymous referees who offered useful criticism of the original draft of this paper. Any remaining errors are attributable solely to the author.

REFERENCES Barnes, D. G. (1930), A Hisrory o/fhe English Corn Laws. London. Deane, P., and Cole, W. A. (1964), British Economic Growth, 1688-1959. Cambridge. Glass, D. V., and Eversley, D. E. C. (Eds.) (1965), “Population and Population Movements in England and Wales, 1700-1850.” in Population in Hictory. London, Chap. 9, pp. 221-246. Gonner, E. C. K. (1912), Common Land and Enclosure. London. Johnson, A. H. (1909), The DisappeuranceoftheSmulf Landowner. Oxford. Philpot, G. (1975), “Enclosure and Population Growth in Eighteenth Century England,” Explorations

in Economic

History

146 29-46.

Slater, G. (1907), The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields, London. Tate, W. E. (1967), The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movement. London. Williams, M. (1970), “The Enclosure and Reclamation of Waste Land in England and Wales in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Transactions and Papers of the Institute of Britbh

Geographers

51,99-123.