Enclosure Act - Definition and Overview

An Enclosure Act is any of a number of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament which enclosed common land in the country. This meant that the rights that people once held, to graze animals on these areas when not planted by crops, were now being denied.

Enclosure acts for small areas had been passed sporadically since the 12th century but the vast majority of them were passed between 1750 and 1860. Much larger areas were also enclosed during this time and in 1801 the first General Enclosure Act was passed to tidy up previous acts. In 1845 another General Enclosure Act allowed for the employment of enclosure Commissoners who could enclose land without submitting a request to parliament.

Under this process there were over 5000 individual enclosure acts and 21% of land in England was enclosed, this amounts to nearly 7 million acres (28,000 km²).

Among critics of these acts were the Church and The Levellers.