PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURES IN THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK (1797‐1814).
T HE subject of my analysis is the claims of common and other rights and enclosure awards of eleven Suffolk parishes in the north-eastern part of that county, not far from the sea-coast. I found by accident in the British Museum claims of enclosure of these parishes drawn up by Parliamentary Commissioners.' In three cases, besides the claims, I had opportunity to examine the enclosure awards deposited in the Public Record Office, giving a picture of the final redistribution of the common lands after enclosure.2 For two other parishes in the central part of the county the only material available was the enclosure awards, and the maps appended to them.3 In all the eleven parishes, enclosed by virtue of six private Acts of Parliament, what was divided were various kinds of common and waste lands, but not the previously enclosed common fields; in other words the remnants of common landownership, sometimes insignificant, were abolished. The total area of the divided common land, and part of the previously enclosed land-the dimensions of which can be estimated from the claims and the maps appended to the enclosure awards-amounts to some I3,523 acres. It would be interesting to ascertain how, as a result of enclosures, this land was distributed among the various classes of landholders at the very end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Of no less interest would be, on the basis of these claims, not only to ascertain the percentage of the peasant landownership in the parishes under consideration, but to answer some further questions. Were these peasant-proprietors freeholders or copyholders ? How many were occupying owners, actually engaged in farming? What proportion of land owned by proprietors of peasant type was leased to tenants ? What success did capitalist farming achieve in the parishes in question up to the period of parliamentary enclosure ? The answer to these questions-within the limits of the source above mentioned-is given in the following tables (I-VIII) which sum up the results of my analysis.