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Banbury
Inclosure. —The common fields of Tackley and Nethercot are about to be laid in severalty under the General Inclosure Act, to which proceeding the labourers of the parish strongly object, fearful of losing their ancient rights of cutting fuel on Tackley Heath, and in other parts of the parish. On Monday last a meeting was held at the Gardener’s Arms, Tackley, to receive the claims of the owners or reputed owners of estates and common-rights in the open fields. Mr. James Saunders, of the firm of Davis and Saunders, of Banbury, presiding as commissioner. At this meeting the labourers attended with considerable force, and announced that they had appointed Richard Edgington to be their spokesman, or, as he called himself, “Representative of the peasantry.” Objecting altogether to the proposed inclosure, he (Edgington) stoutly refused to put in any written claim to the supposed or real rights of the peasantry; and in curious, sometimes eloquent language urged the folly of “asking for a man’s own.” “Shall I,” he said, “having paid for the shoes on my feet, condescend to put in a claim for them to a man, or to a set of men, who can have no sort of right to them?” Two or three gentlemen present endeavoured, amidst a scene of clamour and interruption, to explain to these poor men and their accredited leader, that the law was imperative; that it demanded claims should be made in writing, by all who were interested in the open fields, or by their agents; but this they increased the opposition with vehement shouts. The commissioner reduced the claims of the “peasantry” to writing, but Edgington, like a true British orator, refused to “put his hand to any paper whatever,” and persisted in attempting the delivery of a preposterously worded speech, the conclusion of which ran thus:—“When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, and seized the crown, which forbidding something lengthy, was too much for the patience of the audience. There is no reason for believing that any proprietor wishes to destroy the poor of their just claims, and though it is intended to inclose and divide Tackley Heath, the wish of the great majority of the landowners probably is, that an allotment of land shall be set near the village, to be occupied by the labourers for special industrial use; but after the expended purchase of coal;—but then the widow and infirm would have the benefit; and some but advanced men can carry turf rights from the Heath.” At the closure of Upper Heyford in 1841, squares were set out, and all the proprietors there are highly pleased with the change of garden allotments has borne for industrial fuel, illustrates the course that perhaps has not been overlooked in many affected inclosures; that a strong jealousy in this or other instances can hardly be a matter of surprise. |
Jennerations