The Organisation of Work

In many Manors the work was organised by two officials:

The Bailiff was employed by the Lord of the Manor to supervise the work.

The Reeve was a kind of foreman, chosen by the men of the village. His job was to organise the work amongst them. It was not a pleasant task and there is evidence of some men actually paying others not to elect them.

Tithes

The priest would have to be provided for. Each person would be required to pay a tithe, that is one tenth of his produce, to the priest, and this would be stored in the Tithe Barn. In the Map of Spondon of 1789 the area next to the Church, where the vicarage now stands, is called Tithe Barn Yard.

Changes in the Lords of the Manor and the Breakdown of Feudalism

Spondon did not remain in the hands of the de Ferrers family, nor did the Feudal System last. As labour became short it was not possible to insist on two days service a week and those who held land got away with a money payment instead. From time-to-time, grants of land were made to individuals and the modern system of land ownership began to develop. By the end of the Middle Ages the map of Spondon had already begun to change.

Private Enclosure

The first major change in the system occurred when men started to take over the Common Land, i.e., the Common Waste and the Common Pasture. No doubt this started in the Middle Ages but there was a great increase in the process in the 16th century. Powerful men started to enclose and fence off the Common Land and deprived poor villagers of their common rights. One reason for doing this at this time was the increase in sheep farming which, because of the high price of wool, was much more profitable than arable farming. Besides depriving men of their rights in the land this type of farming employed fewer people. Sir Thomas More in his book Utopia, Book I said 'What is that, quoth the Cardinal? forsooth my lord (quoth I), your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I heard say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up, and swallow down the very men themselves.' Where the people protested or rebelled, they were always treated roughly. The most famous rebellion against this form of enclosure was Kett's Rebellion 1549 in Norfolk. The leader, Robert Kett ¹, was executed with 3,000 of his men. Also, in 1617 a suit progressed the Star Chamber Destruction of houses and conversion of tillage into pasture in Sinfin.²

Private enclosure continued in the 16th³, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, especially in areas where landowners had sufficient power to get away with it, or where a small number of major landowners agreed amongst themselves. This was more common in Nottinghamshire where there was greater concentration of ownership and more unenclosed land, than in Derbyshire.

Records of the Duchy of Lancaster housed in the National Archives. There were enclosures at Belper, Duffield⁴, Scropton, Alderwasley, Bowden, Spondon⁵, Mellor, Parwich, Buxton, Fairfield, Tunstead, Bonsall, Priestcliff, and Wirksworth. They all appear to refer to the enclosure of common land as separate pasture, while the evidence of the enclosure of arable land, or the conversion of pasture to arable its small. These suits in the Duchy Court documented disputes to enclosures that continued during the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth.⁶ The court rolls of Ashford for the year 1608⁷ contain entries which indicate clearly an enclosing operation of that kind in progress.

By 1789, much of the Common Meadow and the Common Waste had fallen into private hands. This presumably was done despite several suits being heard at the Duchy of Lancaster’s court of equity at the Palace of Westminster. In some areas, for example Sinfin Moor, the number of cattle a person could graze on the Common Waste was fixed (called stinted pasture) and land could then be shared out based on the amount of land required by the number of cattle. The amount of pasture required to graze one beast for a year was called a beast gate and in good areas was usually reckoned as 1 acre. These customary rights were being eroded by the landowners for economic and land management improvements.

In the map of Spondon 1789 the original strips only survive in parts, e.g., on the Derby Field roughly in the area of what is now Raynesway Island, but most plots are larger. Many defects of the Medieval System still survived. Farming was still done on the open field plan so that it was difficult to keep people and animals off your land. The land of most owners was still scattered throughout the three fields. Note from the Enclosure Map how scattered it was in Spondon.

Parliamentary Enclosures

In the 18th Century landowners in many villages came to accept the need for more drastic reform. In particular it was necessary:

1. to bring to an end the open field system and to concentrate land into compact farms.
2. to build strong fences to keep others off their land.
3. to drain their land.

Such an upheaval could be authorised by Parliament but to get Parliament to do this was a long and costly business.

Why did local landowners want to go to such trouble and expense to bring about the change?

It is clear that English farming had to produce more food to satisfy a growing population, especially as more people were migrating to the towns. The old idea of each family providing its own food was no longer possible. Yet those who supported enclosures were not influenced by a desire to help their fellow men. Their motives were selfish. By enclosing their land in compact farms, they increased its value and there were many landowners and traders with money to spare who saw land as a profitable investment.

Land was valuable in three ways: -

1. in politics, you had to own land to get the vote or to be elected to Parliament.
2. socially, the man who owned land was a leader of local society and might also be a Justice of the Peace.
3. as an investment, enclosed farms were more efficient, and the owner could let his land at the high rent.

What had to be done before the land was enclosed?

The Petition

It was essential for the owners of 3/4 or 4/5 of the land to be in agreement. Of course, in some areas one person could own this amount of land but in Spondon it would have been necessary to get the agreement of a group of landowners. When they had made up their minds, and, no doubt, weighed up the high cost, they would present a petition to Parliament. In fact, only one signature was needed on this petition.

Parliament

The procedure in Parliament was as follows. First a Bill of Enclosure would be written out, stating what was proposed to be done: "To divide and enclose the open fields, common pastures, common moor and waste grounds within the Hamlet or Liberty of Spondon in the county of Derby etc.". This would be read to the House of Commons on two separate occasions. Members of Parliament could vote against the Bill on each occasion but, since Members of Parliament were landowners and were generally in favour of the idea, this was not likely. The Bill for Spondon's enclosure progressed through Parliament from 5 February 1788.

The Bill would then be passed on to the next stage - the Committee Stage. The Committee would consist of a small group of M.P.'s. Usually the local landowners would have obtained the support of a local M.P. to sponsor the Bill and he would be the Chairman of the Committee. The other members would be M.P.'s from the same county or a neighbouring county. Mr Daniel Parker Coke and Mr Mundy represented the Spondon Enclosure bill through Parliament, co-opting Sir William Codrington on 7 April 1788. Provided the Bill had the support of the owners of 3/4 to 4/5 of the land they would be expected to support it even though a large number of small landowners might be opposed to it. The Committee then reported back to the House of Commons and the Bill of Enclosure would be passed in a third reading and would become an Act of Parliament. Parliament took no further part in the proceedings. The Spondon Enclosure Bill was passed for the Act to be published on 8 May 1788.

The Three Commissioners

The Act would name the three Commissioners who were appointed to carry out the changes. Normally they would include a representative of the Lord of the Manor, a representative of the tithe owners and a representative of the majority of owners in value (not numbers). So these Commissioners were not likely to be influenced by the wishes of the small landowners. These Commissioners would arrange meetings published in the local paper and notify interested parties to attend by posting notices outside Spondon's church. These notices published in the Derby Mercury documenting the progress of Spondon's Enclosure between 12th April 1787 until 26th February 1789.

The three Commissioners for Spondon were "Samuel Wyatt of Burton upon Trent in the County of Stafford, Benjamin Chambers of Tibshelf in the County of Derby and Thomas Fletcher of Whitwell in the County of Derby".

The Commissioners were usually experienced surveyors, but this may not have been the case in Spondon where the Act allowed them to appoint "Robert Smedley of Chaddesden in the Said County of Derby Land Surveyor and in case of his death or refusal to act such other person as should from time to time be appointed". Robert Smedley [or 'I.S'] produced 3 maps covering 4712 acres or 1907 hectares.⁸ In 1791 the three commissioners responsible for overseeing the parliamentary enclosure of Chaddesden appointed Robert Smedley, a Chaddesden man and a cartographer of some skill, to act as their surveyor. His task, which took the best part of a year to complete, was to survey the whole of the village and then draw the resultant enclosure map. Carefully plotted at a scale of 1:4752 (i.e. one inch to six chains), the map shows the individual houses of Chaddesden, its four open fields – Breadsall Field, Derby Field, Ryley Field and Spondon Field – as well as the common, meadow and previously-enclosed land.⁹

Their first task was to survey and value the land to be enclosed. They had to settle the ownership of each plot and this might involve a number of disputes which could take a long time to solve. These would then be recorded on a map, like the Spondon Map of 1789. They would now be in a position to organise exchanges so that each person could concentrate all his land in one area. On the Map of the Spondon award each person's land is listed and opposite some of the plots appears the word "exchanged". These exchanges are recorded on the back of the original map which is held by the County Archivist at Matlock. The Lord of Manor would receive a substantial grant of land as lord of the soil.

Much of the land to be enclosed was subject to tithes. Since the Middle Ages, the church had lost its control over large areas of tithable land which had been "impropriated" by private landlords. Most of the land in Spondon, which was subject to the payment of great tithes, was in the hands of two landowners, Sir Robert Mead Wilmot, and William Richardson, who are referred to in the list as "impropriators", These "Great" or "Rectorial" tithes had probably been granted originally to Dale Abbey and passed into lay hands at the Reformation. The vicar of Spondon, the Rev. Thomas Manlove, received more than 21 acres for "tithes of Spondon", i.e., "small" tithes (cow and calf, pasture, orchards, gardens, bees etc.). This is how present-day rectories and vicarages came into being.

The Cost to the Landowners

The cost of the work of the Commissioners had to be paid for by the landowners. This work could drag on for as long as 20 years because they had to see that their orders were carried out.

After enclosure, each landowner had to fence and drain his land. Methods of fencing varied in Derbyshire from the stone walls of the hilly areas to quick growing hawthorn hedges common in the Spondon area. Derbyshire Record Office has a copy of a letter from Frank Jupp to Hezekiah Clarke dated 21 July 1789 D2564/Box/1. It is a printed form informing Hezekiah Clarke that his proportion of the assessment for defraying the expense of executing the Act of Parliament for the enclosure Spondon, amounts to the sum of £5 6 shillings and 10d which the commissioners have appointed to be paid to the house of John Harrison, the sign of the Malt Shovel, Spondon on Monday 24th of August 1789, all to me [Frank Jupp] at Derby in the meantime. Two websites with genealogical information about Hezekiah Clarke and his family boydhouse.com and ancestry.co.uk this amount of money would probably have been set by the commissioners based on the poor rates, land tax assessments or a simple system based on pro-rata on the amount of land held.

Hezekiah Clarke was awarded in lieu of and compensation for all his Right and Interest in the Lands and Grounds intended to be divided and enclosed in the Spondon Enclosure Award ONE piece of land, part of Derby Field, marked 122 in the plan, containing Three roods and seventeen perches; ONE piece of land, being part Derby Field marked 125 in the plan containing One rood and twenty-four perches; the total containing together 1 acre one rood and one perch. Hezekiah Clarke paid 8 shillings 10 d Land Tax in 1780, but in 1789, at the time of the Spondon Enclosure Award it had reduced to 6 shillings 8 d at a rate of 4 shillings to one pound. Total costs could amount to hundreds of pounds and small landowners simply could not afford to pay. They would be compelled to sell their land to a richer man.

The Common Land

If the common land had not been enclosed earlier by private enclosure it would be enclosed by the Commissioners. Some of the villagers might have a claim on some of this land. For example, in some places the village carpenter may have relied on it for wood and he would be granted a plot of land as compensation. However, most of the villagers would have no claim, even though they and their families had used the common land for centuries. Some villagers lived on the common land as squatters and as the land was enclosed, they were removed. It is unlikely that any squatters were evicted in Spondon because most of the common land seems to have fallen into private hands before 1789. The area which was subject to the award consisted of the Derby Field, Brook Field, Burrow Field and the areas to the north of the village known as "the Leys" and "Waste" (referred to as stinted pasture) and "a common or piece of waste ground called Spondon Moor… containing together by estimation one thousand acres or thereabouts".