Some social and economic considerations of parliamentary enclosure in Buckinghamshire, 1738-1865.

This study looks at aspects of the Parliamentary Enclosure Land Reform in Buckinghamshire from 1733—1865, essentially social and economic considerations, in which the approach is mainly thematic. A constant theme is the diversity of the source materials, in particular the richness of relatively little used and recently discovered sources. The introduction describes the geographical nature of Parliamentary Enclosure in terms of chronology, distribution and density and demonstrates the nature of land hunger and the resulting piecemeal enclosures end encroachments before the mid-eighteenth century, which may have been an important reason for the eventual emergence of enclosure by Act of Parliament. The social considerations are discussed under various headings, landownership distribution and associated changes, opposition to enclosure and the personalities of enclosure. The complexity of landownership produced some major conclusions and called for a re-interpretation of past research. Some gross generalizations have been revised and others substantiated. Similarly for other social considerations. The Land Tax as a source is re-appraised and suggested for future research with the plea that individuals are considered as well as aggregate analyses. Questions of economic cost compliment the social considerations by showing that the inordinate expense of enclosure had some fatal social repercussions. Past researchers grossly underestimated the cost of enclosure. It was quite prohibitive for many parishioners especially when considering their opportunities for the complimentary financing of enclosure. In particular it is shown that the mortgage bond was not as widely employed as formerly believed. By posing questions and producing answer the study substantiates some former conclusions, alters other and provides some new conclusions for certain themes, but more important, it poses very many new questions and indicates likely avenues for future researchers for possible answers.