In general, it may be said, that the Parliamentary enclosure of a given parish indicates that the manorial authority was exercised during a long period antecedent to the enclosure, to prevent gradual enclosure by individual tenants; and that the existence of important rights and properties belonging to the lord of the manor prevented a common agreement to enclose by the actual cultivators of the soil from being reached and put into execution.
It may also be noticed that in a parish or township where there is no one principal landlord, but a number of landowners owning moderate properties, there is comparatively little likelihood of the net profit of an Enclosure Act seeming to any one owner worth the trouble of initiating a movement to promote one; and a comparatively greater likelihood of some owner or owners being found disposed, from private grudges or on public grounds, to oppose the proceedings.
This distribution of property in a common field parish increases the probability that enclosure will proceed in a piecemeal fashion, instead of by an Act.
ENCLOSURE UNDER THE GENERAL ACTS OF 1886 AND 1840.
In 1836 a general Act (c. 115) was passed “to facilitate the Inclosure of Open and Arable Fields in England and Wales.” By this Act two-thirds in number and value of the proprietors of lands and common rights in Arable Common Fields could appoint Commissioners for Enclosure, provided such fields were not within ten miles of the centre of London, or three miles from the centre of some town of over 100,000 inhabitants, or within certain smaller distances of smaller towns. Enclosure so effected was only recorded locally. Awards had to be deposited in the parish churches; but no confirming Act was needed. If seven-eighths in number and value of the proprietors were agreed upon enclosure, it was not necessary for them even to appoint Commissioners, if they could come to an agreement as to the redistribution of properties.
In 1840 an amending Act (c. 31) was passed, providing that persons who took possession of the allotments awarded them in enclosures under the Act of 1836 must be deemed to have waived the right of appeal from the award. The scope of the Act of 1836 was also extended to Lammas meadows.