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From Unanimity to Proportionality: Assent Standards and the Parliamentary Enclosure Movement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2013
Extract
“Enclosure” has long been shorthand for describing the exchange of scattered strips of land and common rights for cohesive plots in premodern and modern England. Proprietors who farmed long strips of land throughout a village or released cattle on unused waste would receive at enclosure regular plots commensurate in value with earlier interests. The process of enclosure in a village could be gradual, as it predominantly was for much of the premodern period. Alternatively, as increasingly occurred in the modern era, the proprietors could enclose their lands in concert. Figure 1, two maps of Helmdon in Northamptonshire, depicts the vast change in holdings that could occur through enclosure.
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- Forum: Legal History and Legislatures
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References
1. Val Moir, Aspects of Helmdon No 2 http://www.helmdon.com/trail/tier1/enclosurearticle.html (1998) (accessed 01/2011).
2. The figure in the text is a modest estimate. Given some estimates, the amount of unenclosed land may have been considerably greater. According to John Chapman, between roughly 7,250,000 and 7,350,000 acres were newly enclosed through parliamentary enclosure during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Chapman, John, “The Extent and Nature of Parliamentary Enclosure,” Agricultural History Review 35 (1987): 25, 27Google Scholar. Further, as indicated by John Wordie, of the 32,500,000 acres in England, another 1,350,000 acres remained unenclosed at the end of the parliamentary enclosure movement. Wordie, John R., “The Chronology of English Enclosure, 1500–1914,” Economic History Review 36 (1983): 483, 486CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Moreover, Chapman estimates another 25 percent of formal enclosures—perhaps 1,800,000 acres—took place through non-parliamentary means. Chapman, John, “The Chronology of English Enclosure,” Economic History Review 34 (1984): 557, 558Google Scholar; and Chapman, John, “Charities, Rents, and Enclosure: A Comment on Clark,” Journal of Economic History 59 (1999): 447, 447CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This does not count the effects of holders “nibbling” at lands held in common, informally enclosing those properties. Wordie, “Chronology” (estimating that up to 500,000 acres could have been lost through such nibbling). In gross, this could have amounted to nearly a third of the land in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
3. Sources: 16–53 H.L. Jour. (1696–1820); 13–70 H.C. Jour. (1700–1820); 1 Her Majesty's Stationary Office, Chronological Table of the Statutes, 1235–1974 (HNSO, 2007) 84–257; and Chronological Tables of Local Acts and of Private and Personal Acts, 1715–1820, http://www.opsi.gov.uk/chron-tables/chron-index (accessed 12/11/2012). Julian Hoppit's compilation on failed bills was also useful as a starting point for this examination. Hoppit, Julian (ed.), Failed Legislation, 1600–1800: Extracted from the Commons and Lords Journals (London: Hambledon Press, 2003)Google Scholar. Even this may understate the amount of enclosure by missing those enclosures that occurred piecemeal or voluntarily in the shadow of parliamentary developments. See Chapman, “Chronology.” See also Chapman, John and Seeliger, Sylvia, “Sussex: Open Fields and their Disappearance,” S. Hist. 17 (1995): 88–97Google Scholar (noting that only 32 of the 104 open fields existing in Sussex in 1700 were enclosed as a consequence of parliamentary enclosure). But see Wordie, “Chronology” (contending that 24 percent of the surface area of England was enclosed between 1600 and 1699) and Overton, Mark, Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996), 149–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar (accepting Wordie's chronology).
4. On the effects of enclosure on the peasantry, compare, for example, Neeson, J.M. , Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), 251–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar (significant effects) with Shaw–Taylor, Leigh, “Parliamentary Enclosure and the Emergence of an English Agricultural Proletariat,” Journal of Economic History 61 (2001): 640–662 (limited effects)Google Scholar. On the effects on small landowners, compare, for example, J.M. Martin, “The Small Landowner and Parliamentary Enclosure in Warwickshire,” Economic History Review 32 (1979): 328–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar (significant effects); Martin, J.M., “The Parliamentary Enclosure Movement and Rural Society in Warwickshire,” Agricultural History Review (1967): 1519, 34–37Google Scholar, with Whyte, Ian D., “Parliamentary Enclosure and Changes in Landownership in an Upland Environment: Westmorland c.1770–1860,” Agricultural History Review 34 (2006): 240–56Google Scholar (arguing that upcountry enclosures had little impact upon the fortunes of small landowners, in part because of the customary tenures generally enjoyed by them). On the effects on substantial landowners, see, for example, Allen, Robert C., “Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution,” in The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 1: Industrialization, 1700–1860, ed. Floud, Roderick and Johnson, Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004), 96Google Scholar.
5. Recognition of innovation as a factor in the eighteenth-century enclosure wave has some pedigree. For example, popular moralist William Paley observed in 1785 that common rights “condemn[ed] the land . . . to perpetual sterility. . ., ” precluding “each proprietor from the improvement . . . of his estate without (what seldom can be obtained) the consent of many others.” Paley, William, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (London: Haddon, 1821), 494Google Scholar. “Improvement” or “innovation” remains a dominant explanation for enclosure in the eighteenth century. Mark Overton has recently argued that the enclosure movement allowed farmers to take advantage of recent improvements in crop rotation—the Norfolk four-course—that had not become common knowledge until the middle of the eighteenth century. See Overton, Agricultural Revolution, vol. 3, at 147–67 . Studies by revisionist historians have challenged this explanation. See Allen, Robert C., Enclosure and the Yeoman (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 107–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar (contending that owners and tenant farmers on enclosed lands were only slightly more likely to adopt new technologies than their counterparts working open fields, but that this willingness to innovate did not yield significant gains in productivity); Allen, Robert C., “The Efficiency and Distributional Consequences of Eighteenth Century Enclosures,” Econ. J. 92 (1982): 937, 949CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing that open fields were as or more open to innovative approaches to agriculture as enclosed plots) and J. A. Yelling, Common Field and Enclosure in England, 1500–1850 (Hamden: Archon Books, 1977), 144–45 (same).
6. Crafts, Nicholas, “Determinants of the Rate of Parliamentary Enclosure,” Explorations in Economic History 14 (1977): 227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7. Allen, “Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution,” 110–11. See “The Economics of Enclosure: A Market Analysis,” in E.L. Jones and William Parker (eds.), European Peasants and their Markets. Essays in Agrarian Economic History (Princeton Univ. Press, 1975), 123. See also Deidre McCloskey, note 4, at 156–57 (contending that the doubling of rents was indicative of an increase in productivity upon enclosure). But see Clark, Gregory, “Common Sense: Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional Change,” Journal of Economic History 58 (1998):73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 75 (calling into question the doubling of rents upon enclosure and arguing instead that rents upon enclosure were little more than needed to cover its costs).
8. Allen, “Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution,” note 4, at 111–12.
9. To this extent, this article is in line with recent work by Dan Bogart and Gary Richardson on local transportation legislation. See, for example, Dan Bogart, “Did the Glorious Revolution Contribute to the Transport Revolution? Evidence for Investment in Roads and Rivers,” 64 Economic History Review 1073 (2011); and Dan Bogart and Gary Richardson, “Property Rights and Parliament in Industrializing Britain,” 54 Journal of Law &. Economics 241 (2011).
10. Harris, Ron, “Encounters of Economic History and Legal History,” Law & History Review 21 (2003): 297, 344CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11. Klerman, Daniel, “Jurisdictional Competition and the Evolution of the Common Law: A Prospectus,” Australian Journal of Legal History 8 (2004): 1Google Scholar; and Klerman, Daniel, “Jurisdictional Competition and the Evolution of the Common Law,” University of Chicago Law Review 74 (2007): 1179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12. Nicholas Parrillo, Against the Profit Motive: The Salary Revolution in American Government, 1780–1940 (Yale Univ. Press, 2013).
13. Pfander, James E., “Judicial Compensation and the Definition of Judicial Power in the Early Republic,” Michigan Law Review 107 (2008): 1Google Scholar.
14. Under the Statute of Merton, 20 Hen. 3, c.4 (1235), a local lord of the manor could convert waste to severalty, but only when this “approvement” by the lord left the common rights of freeholders unimpeded. It was also possible to destroy common rights over a field or pasture through unity of possession in a single hand. Sawyer's Case, Wm. Jones 284, 287, (1632) 82 Eng. Rep. 150, 151 (K.B.). But again, the enclosing lord or proprietor faced a variety of hurdles, including the requirement that the estates be identical. A third alternative existed in those villages with an established custom of permitting proprietors to remove themselves from the open fields system of the village, to raise and graze on a several plot. But here, one had to be fortunate enough to reside in a manor in which the custom was established. In many regions, no such custom was recognized. See, for example, Clarkson v. Woodhouse, 3 Dougl. 189, 193, (1782) 99 Eng. Rep. 606, 608 (K.B.); Smith v. Lord Pomfret, 2 Bro. Parl. Cases 444, 444, (1722) 1 Eng. Rep. 293, 293 (H.L.); Hickman v. Thorne, 2 Modern 104, 105, (1677) 86 Eng. Rep. 967, 968 (C.P.) (holding that party pleading custom of enclosing lands lying together did not need to aver that the lands enclosed were adjacent); and Foiston v. Crachroode, 4 Coke Rep. 31b, 31b–32a, (1587) 76 Eng. Rep. 962, 963–65 (K.B.) (holding that copyholder averring common right against the lord of the manor's lands cannot prescribe personally against the lord, but must use real prescription, alleging the custom of the manor as basis for right).
15. See, for example, 4 Hen. 8, c.19 (1513) and 39 Eliz. 1, c.2 (1597).
16. At law, the parties to an enclosure agreement had only limited power to enforce it. In the common law courts, a prevailing plaintiff bringing an action to recover for breach of an agreement—for example, an agreement to purchase a freehold tenement—would only receive damages for his effort, not the freehold itself. See Ibbetson, David, A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), 213Google Scholar. The equitable process in Chancery offered an injunctive remedy against a party or parties in breach. A seller who refused to transfer land to a purchaser, for example, would be subject to a subpoena out of chancery requiring him to transfer the property covered by the agreement. A party who refused to enclose his plot or broke the hedgerows of the others across his strips could be promptly enjoined to abide by the agreement. Reflecting this awareness, by the later Tudor period, parties to enclosure agreements began to appear in chancery, seeking decrees against those who repudiated or breeched an agreement to enclose. See M.W. Beresford, “The Decree Rolls of Chancery as a Source for Economic History, 1547–c.1700,” Economic History Review 32 (1979) 1Google Scholar, 2 (noting that the earlier agreement for enclosure appearing on examined decree rolls was for Condover, Shropshire “made in May 1550 and enrolled in 1586”). Also see E.M. Leonard, “The Inclosure of Common Fields in the Seventeenth Century,” Transactions of the Royal History Society 19 (1905): 101, 108–10 (describing the key role played by chancery in seventeenth century enclosures)Google Scholar. In the law reports, the first cases that indicate the involvement of chancery and the equity side of the exchequer in affecting enclosure agreements are All Souls' College v. Everal and All Souls' College v. Leighton, in which it appeared that the plaintiffs sought to have commissioners set out contested lands and ways under an enclosure. From the short notes on both, it appears that chancery dismissed the common rights-based claims as sounding in law, but nonotherless issued commissions to set out ways. All Souls' College v. Everal, Cary 75, 75, (1579) 21 Eng. Rep. 40, 40 (Ch.) and All Souls' College v. Leighton, Choice Cas. in Chan. 142, 142, (1579) 21 Eng. Rep. 85, 85 (Ch.).
17. This is, curiously, a point that seems to have been missed by earlier historians of enclosure in chancery. My preliminary research indicates that proprietors had more in mind in using chancery than the recording of enclosure awards. This included the ability of proprietors to use the foot of the chancellor to enforce an enclosure award where the parties had agreed to accept a neutrally determined award as binding in advance. Chancery became actively involved in the implementation of enclosure agreements, not only by decreeing those allotments made by third parties pursuant to agreement, but also by issuing commissions to “set out the meets and bounds” of the plots to be held by the parties. The court, it appears, was in the business of setting up enclosure commissions to carry out agreements. See, for example, Clark, G.N. , “Enclosure by Agreement at Marston, near Oxford,” English History Review, 42 (1927): 87–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reproduction of decree in collusive Croke v. Whorwood action, Chancery Decree Roll 586, No. 1 and describing the roll of the surveyor in setting out tracts). Also see Fox v. Shrewsbury, Tothill 111, 111, (1638) 21 Eng. Rep. 139, 139 (Ch.) (compelling a party to adhere to an enclosure award, if he had consented to the original agreement); Wright v. Stamford, Tothill 111, 111, (1634) 21 Eng. Rep. 139, 139 (upholding articles of agreement in enclosure case); and Bishop v. Bishop, 1 Chan. Rep. 142, 142, (1640) 21 Eng. Rep. 532, 532, (holding that chancery may compel a party to perform his part of an award, even though the award was not made at the direction of court). For examples of enclosure commissions issued, see Thirveton v. Collier, 3 Chan. Rep. 13, 14, (1664) 21 Eng. Rep. 714, 714 (stating that “the Agreement for the Inclosure should be performed; and a Commission then was awarded to set out each Persons Lot….”). Also, Thirveton v. Collier, 1 Chan. Cas. 48, 48, (1664) 22 Eng. Rep. 688, 688 (same case) and Anonymous, Nelson 79, 79–80, (1664) 21 Eng. Rep. 794, 794 (same case) and, possibly, Lovett v. Chamberlen, Choice Cas. in Chan. 164, 164, 21 (1583) Eng. Rep. 95, 95 (ordering commissions to examine witnesses and certify an enclosure award under their hands).
18. Thirveton v. Collier, 3 Chan. Rep. 13, 14, (1664) 21 Eng. Rep. 714, 714; and Ingram v. Wells, Tothill 111, 111, (1626) 21 Eng. Rep. 139, 139 (Ch.).
19. But see Rothwell v. Widdrington, 1 Vern. 456, 456, (1687) 23 Eng. Rep. 582 (Ch.) (concluding that although the consent of the defendant's husband could not bind the widow to enclosure, her estate had been improved by the enclosure and that she was stopped from challenging the enclosure because it would work an “unreasonable advantage” to her).
20. Act for Confirmation of Decrees between King and Copyholders in the Manor of Wakefield, 1609, 7 Jac. 1, private act, c.1; Act for Confirmation of Decree between King and Copyholders in the Manor of Edmonton, 1609, 7 Jac. 1, private act, c.2; Act for Creation and Confirmation of Copyholds in the Manors or Lordships of Clitheroe, Derby, Accrington, Colne and Ightenhill, 1609, 7 Jac. 1, private act, c.3; Act for the Confirmation of Chancery Decree between the Lords of the Manor and Customary Tenants of the Manor of Painswick, 1621, 21 Jac. 1, private act, c.16; Act for the Confirmation of Copyhold Estates and Customs According to an Agreement between the King, Lord of the Manor of Cheltenham, Giles Greville, Lord of the Manor of Asheley and the Copyholders of the Manors, 1625, 1 Car. 1, private act, c.1; and Act for the Confirmation of an Agreement between the Commissioners of Revenue on Behalf of His Majesty and the Copyholders of the Manor of Macclesfield, and of an Exchequer Decree for Making a Parcel of the Manor Copyhold, 1625, 1 Car. 1, private act, c.2. Confirmation of Malvern Chase Inclosure and Improvement Act, 1664, 16 Car. 2, private act, c.5; Horton Inclosure and Preservation of Wood and Timber Act, 1667, 19&20 Car. 2, private act, c.12; Act for Ascertaining and Establishing the Interest of the Lord and Copyhold Tenants of the Manors of West Derby and Wavertree in Relation to their Fines and Commons, 1677, 29&30 Car. 2, statute 2, private act, c.3; and Act for Repealing a Clause for Dividing Commons in an Act for Draining the Bedford Level, 1685, 1 Jac. 2, private act, c.2. Some of these later bills and acts were not, strictly speaking, bills for enclosure per se. One in 1677, was aimed at allocating rights of common in the manors of West Derby and Wavertree in Lancashire, not enclosure, specifically. 29&30 Car. 2, st. 2, private act c.3. And another in 1685 was for the repeal of a provision in an earlier act for draining the Bedford Level pertaining to enclosure on drained lands. 1 Jac. 2, private act, c.2. Information on the Civil War and interregnum eras is incomplete or lacking.
21. 21 H.L. Jour. (1721 [1720]) 404. This would have entailed sending enclosure petitions and proposed bills to a pair of common law judges when the matter was first brought into the Lords.
22. 10 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of the House of Lords 332 [3108] (1953). Also see Thormarton or Farmington Inclosure Act, 1713, 13 Ann., private act, c.7.
23. This included, for example, the incapacity of a holder or the inability of the impropriator of tithes to relinquish the same for more than three lives. Brown, David and Sharman, Frank, “Enclosure Agreements and Acts,” Journal of Legal History 269, 272 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The author's examination of the titles and contents of these acts confirms the conclusions of Brown and Sharman.
24. Stateman, Catherine (ed.), The Liverpool Tractate: An Eighteenth-Century Manual on the Procedure of the House of Commons (AMS Press, 1967), 54Google Scholar.
25. Sources: 20–27 H.L. Jour. (1715–1753); 18–26 H.C. Jour. (1715–1753). Also see, Supplementary Material1, which lists extracts from committee reports in the Commons' and Lords' Journals between 1715 and 1759.
26. Overton, Longville and Botolph's Bridge Inclosure Act, 1728, 1 Geo. 2, private act, c.26.
27. Sunningwell cum Bayworth Inclosure Act, 1724, 10 Geo. 1, private act, c.6.
28. 19 H.C. Jour. (1720) 328.
29. 21 H.C. Jour. (1730) 540. Various drafts of the bill were made, presumably to satisfy all interests. See Henry E. Huntington Library, Stowe Collection, Granville papers, manorial and local, STG M&L Box 54, ff. 7, 8 and STG M&L Oversize Box 7, f.8 (18th century, undated).
30. 21 H.C. Jour. (1731 [1730]) 610.
31. Ibid., (1732 [1731]) 816.
32. 23 H.C. Jour. (1738 [1737]) 100 and 136. See also Henry E. Huntington Library, Stowe Collection, Granville papers, manorial and local, STG M&L Box 4, f.31 (c.1738). The final bill noted the exception of the two landowners in question: “And whereas the said Richard Grenville, the said Dean and Chapter, the Warden or Rector, and Scholars, and the said Richard Lord Viscount Cobham, Lydia Clements, and Elizabeth Rice, being the several Proprietors and Owners of the said Lands (except the said James Hynd, and Mary his wife, who have an undivided Fourth Part of one Half Yard-land, and the Right of Common belonging to the same; which Half Yard-land doth not contain above Twenty Acres; and also except the Heir at Law, or Devisee of the said Jane Dare, who is intitled to one other undivided Fourth Part of the said Half Yard-land last-mentioned, and the Right of Common belonging to the same; and also except the said George Franklyn, who is Mortgagee of the said last-mentioned Half Yard-land) are desirous that the said several Inconveniences may be remedied and prevented, and for that Purpose have agreed, That the said Common Fields, Wastes, and uninclosed Grounds, shall be forthwith divided and inclosed, and all Right of Common therein extinguished. . . .” Act for Ashenden Inclosure and Making Effectual Exchanges Therein Mentioned, 1737, 11 Geo. 2, private act, c.20.
33. 23 H.C. Jour. (1738 [1737]) 56.
34. 26 H.C. Jour. (1751) 217.
35. The absence of consent is the chief grounding of the opponents' objection to the legislation, as revealed in a contemporaneously printed piece of ephemeral matter by the opponents. According to The Humble Representation of the Petitioners against the Stareton [Staverton] Common Bill, the petitioners against the bill contend that they amount to “Nineteen in Number; and are possessed of a Fourth Part of the whole Field; and have a Right of Common over all of it.”The Humble Representation of the Petitioners against the Stareton Common Bill (London: 1751), 1Google Scholar.
36. 26 H.C. Jour. (1753) 749.
37. Ibid., 551.
38. Ibid., 621–22.
39. Homer, H., An Essay on the Nature and Method of Ascertaining the Specific Shares of Proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common Fields (Oxford: 1766), 42Google Scholar.
40. Ellis, Charles, Practical Remarks and Precedents of Proceedings in Parliament (London: McMillan, 1802), 84–85Google Scholar. However, as Ellis was making this claim, the assent proportion was once again being lowered.
41. Henry E. Huntington Library, Stowe Collection, Granville papers, manorial and local, STG M&L Box 4, ff. 29, 31, 25 (1737–41).
42. Lillington Inclosure Act, 1730, 3 Geo. 2, private act, c.4.
43. West Stafford cum Froom Bellet Inclosure Act, 1736, 9 Geo. 2, private act, c.35.
44. See, for example, Westbury Inclosure Act, 1763, 4 Geo. 3, private act, c. 61.
45. In this regard, then, the argument of this article is perhaps a stronger version of Joanna Innes's thesis on the domestic policy role played by Parliament in the eighteenth century. See Innes, Joanna, Inferior Politics: Social Problems and Social Policies in Eighteenth Century Britain, (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009), 21–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46. The remainder of this section on parliamentary procedure is a précis of two chapters of a dissertation project. The descriptions of procedure here derive from an exhaustive (one hopes) examination of all entries on putative local and private legislation in the Commons Journals between 1688 and 1774, and just over half of the entries in the Lords Journals for the same period, typically with an eye to deciphering process and substantive norms for period in question. To illuminate this activity, I also examined contemporary sources on procedure, including, for example, The Liverpool Tractate. Stateman, The Liverpool Tractate, 54. In addition, to the extent possible, I examined missives between those members, such as Peter Shakerley of Chester, who worked on a substantial number of measures in the early part of the century to understand how procedures developed and operated in practice during a period when many of them were coming into being.
47. It was determined in the 1729 (1728–29) session in the case of Oxford University's petition for leave to introduce legislation for the enclosure of the common fields at Wick Rissington that the petition was to be referred to a committee for an examination of the matters contained within. 21 H.C. Jour. (1729 [1728]) 243–44. This was an unusual determination, given that enclosure bills did not threaten the imposition of a rate on the subject or a duty on goods, the precondition for committal under the Commons' standing order of 1717 regarding petitions for certain rate-setting local bills.
48. Stateman, The Liverpool Tractate, 54.
49. Ibid., see note 46.
50. 19 H.C. Jour. (1720) 328. Also see Supplementary Material 1.
51. See Lambert, Sheila, Bills and Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 137–39Google Scholar.
52. Ibid., and Langford, Paul, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman 1698–1798 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), 139–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53. The shorthand table is drawn from Supplementary Materials 2 and 3, which describes the various fees that would be owed on a typical enclosure bill and when those obligations would be incurred. It also speculates on the other costs of an ordinary enclosure, drawn from contemporary sources. Supplementary Material 3 sets forth by year the stages of the parliamentary process at which enclosure legislation was lost between 1714 and 1774.
54. See Supplementary Material 3.
55. It is far from clear why this change occurred. Perhaps it was noted in the House of Commons that enclosure bills were offered into the Lords as well as the Commons—something impermissible if those bills were aimed at setting a rate. And, were it de facto the case that such bills were not setting rates, there would have been no cause to commit the petitions on their behalf. Such a rationale would have been an adequate excuse for the lower house to be rid of a frustrating redundancy, one that, despite its benefits, may have taxed the patience of promoters—who had to pay greater costs overall on legislation, as well as of many committee members—who had to hear evidence supporting the need of the legislation and the existence of consent twice.
56. Lambert, Bills and Acts, 198–225.
57. For an example from much later in the century, see the fee chart of parliamentary agent Edward Barwell on the Buckingham Parish Church Bill of 1777, Huntington Library, Stowe Collection, Granville papers, manorial and local, STG M&L Box 8(16) (May 4, 1777).
58. See, generally, Lambert, Bills and Acts, 136–38.
59. Tate, W.E., “Members of Parliament and the Proceedings upon Enclosure Bills,” Economic History Review 12 (1942): 68–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Members of Parliament and their Personal Relations to Enclosure: A Study with Special Reference to Oxfordshire Enclosures, 1757–1843,” Agricultural History 23 (1949): 213–220Google Scholar.
60. Inclosure Act of 1836, 6&7 Will. 4, c.115 §1 (repealed 1899).
61. See Langford, Paul, Public Life, 43–47, 139–44Google Scholar.
Tennyson Supplementary Material
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