A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



second attempt was made by Mr. Thomas Gaythorne to inclose 200 acres of the same moor. 

 This time the people, having common rights, refused to submit. One witness remarks that no 

 objection would have been taken to Mr. Gaythorne's proceedings if he had been contented with 

 the king's moors, but he had gone on inclosing more ground. Incidentally a glimpse is afforded of 

 the unbusinesslike methods used in the management of the royal domain. ' Sir Cornelius Ver- 

 muyden, kt., paid several inhabitants £2 ^Oi. an acre for a composition for cutting through 

 Rocliff Moors, then their inheritance, the King's Moors lying next thereunto, which said sum rnight 

 have been paid for the King's Moor for such licence if the same had been demanded for cutting a 

 river through the same.' ^ 



A kw scattered facts with regard to Yorkshire indosures can be gleaned from Celia Fiennes, 

 who wrote in the late 17th century. She alludes to the inclosures between Darlington and Rich- 

 mond, the common near Boroughbridge, and the open common between Knaresborough and Leeds. 

 But the endless inclosures in the neighbourhood of Elland seem to have struck her, as they had done 

 James Ryder a century earlier, as the distinguishing feature of the district.*' 



It is interesting to note that Daniel Defoe also, almost a century later, particularly remarked 

 that in the neighbourhood of Halifax to Blackstone Edge the land was divided into small inclosures 

 from two acres to six or seven each. Every three or four pieces of land had a house and a tenter, 

 and on every tenter was a piece of cloth, kersey or shalloon.® These agricultural weavers 

 alluded to by Defoe, who eked out their scanty earnings by cultivating a few acres of ground, 

 formed an important section in the industrial and economic life of the West Riding. They 

 survived into the 19th century, long after their common rights had passed away. In fact 

 the class is not yet extinct, though the 20th-century representative has no strip of common 

 land to occupy his energies. The allotment or poultry rearing takes the place of the subsistence 

 farming of his 18th-century prototype. Many consider that if inclosing had been carried on 

 with a nicer regard for the rights of the small holder of common land, this class might have 

 continued. But they were crushed out of existence rather by the better organization of industry 

 than by the systematic encroachments of their powerful neighbours. The sturdy independence, 

 that in theory is so much admired, did not lend itself to obey the bell of the factory. The life of 

 constant change from weaving to agriculture, from agriculture to bartering yarn or cloth, with 

 exciting interludes of rabbit-coursing and ratting, fostered their hatred of monotony. Men of this 

 type, ready to turn their hand to anything, were England's most valuable assets in ensuring the 

 expansion of the colonies, but as component parts of a highly specialized industrial development they 

 were useless. Their elimination was a necessity of industrial efficiency, rather than a result of the 

 policy of inclosing. 



An interesting experiment, on entirely novel lines, was tried in Yorkshire in the reign 

 of Anne, and carried out successfully. A local Bill was obtained, by which it became lawful 

 for any of the inhabitants of any parish in the West Riding of the county, where chapels- 

 of-ease had been built but had no endowment, to inclose tracts of the wastes or commons in the 

 neighbourhood for the benefit of the curate. 



There were several limitations. The consent of the lord or lords of the manors and three-quarters 

 of the freeholders must be obtained. The area had not to exceed 60 acres or one-sixth of the 

 common land, and it had to be vested in trustees. Only those ministers whose stipends were under 

 ^^40 a year could avail themselves of it. Residence and performance of the divine office were 

 obligatory. According to the report the results were very satisfactory.'" 



Under the heading ' Effect on the poor of the inclosures which took place during the first forty 

 ytars of his present Majesty,' the report of 1 808 gives many typical cases : — 



Ackworth." The parish belonged to near 100 owners ; nearly the whole of whom have come to 

 the parish since the inclosure or changed the quantity of their land. 



Kirkbum. The inclosure has proved of singular advantage to great landowners and their tenants ; 

 but the labourer who, previous to the inclosure, had his cowgate and from thence derived 

 considerable nourishment to his small family, was deprived of this aid by inability to inclose, 

 therefore was under the necessity of selling his tenements to his richer neighbour, and deprived 

 his family of a comfortable refuge. 



Ebberston have lost their cows. 



Tipthorpe [Tibthorpe] have lost their cows and sold their tenements." 



" P.R.O. Exch. Spec. Com. York, no. 6566, 17 Oct. 1670. 



" C. Fiennes, Through England on a Side-saddle, 183-6. 



^ D. Defoe, Tour through Great Britain, (1727), iii (i), 99. 



'° General Inclosure Report, 1 3 1—4. Bd. of Agric. Sir John Sinclair, 1 808 ; Loc. and Personal Act, 

 1 2 Anne, cap. 4. 



" The common fields at Ackworth were inclosed in 1772 by Act of Parliament ; acreage not given. 



"General Inclosures, op. cit. 1808, p. 152. 3,000 acres were inclosed at Tibthorpe by Act of 

 Parliament in 1794. 



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