Opening The Archive

**Despite the recent fire Bristol Reference Library will re-open on April 14th and this event will be unaffected**

The Commons And Enclosure

Your chance to view primary source material related to the commons, enclosure and rebellion in the Bristol Room of the Central Reference Library. Hosted by our friends, the knowledgeable and helpful archivists Dawn Dyer and Jane Bradley

Here is a list of the books that were on view:

John Parkinson (1567–1650; buried 6 August 1650) was the last Laws and Customs  of the Miners of Forest of Dean, 1687. (restricted access)

Ancient laws, customs and orders of the miners in the King’s Forest  of Mendip, 1687. (restriced access)

THOMAS MORE – UTOPIA

OLIVER GOLDSMITH – DESERTED VILLAGE

Monthly Blowing Heart’s Ease April 1822 (The art of eluding a charitable  subscription).

Progress & Effects of Field Gardens to the Labouring Poor 1833. Capt. G. T. SCOBELL

Repeal of the Corn Laws, necessary to the well being of the working classes and not injurious to the Landowner,  1839.

Society for Improving the condition of the Working Classes in the City of Bath, report 1858.

Essay on the British Constitution blended  with the laws relating to Landed Property…..& a letter to a MP on the Subject of a General Inclosure,  AGRICOLA  1812.

National Footpath Preservation Society 1891-92;  Rights of Recreation Walton Common, Clevedon.

Treatise on the law of copyholds and customary tenures of land by Charles Isaac Elton, 1874.

Country Gentleman’s Companion , 1753.

Sheep: their  breeds, management & diseases, 1837.

Facetiae & Miscellanies by WILLIAM HONE, 1827 engravings by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.
Includes ;

• This is the house that Jack Built.
• The Right Divine of Kings to Govern Wrong!
• Bank Restriction banknote.
• The Freeborn Englishman.
• Victory of Peterloo.

Works of the Eminent and Learned  Judge Jenkins.. concerning the King’s Prerogative & the liberty of the subject, 1681. (written and published while a prisoner in Newgate.) (restricted access)

An Enquiry into the Causes that have impeded the increase & improvement of arable farms and that have principally depressed the landed interest…. 1815. (mentions rural labourers).

An address to the inhabitants of Bath on the subject of BREAD shewing the cause if its high price, and proposing an effectual remedy, by establishing a subscription flour &  bread company,  1815.

On the Poor and  some attempts to lower the price of CORN  in Somerset 1548-1638. Emanuel Green 1878.

Parliaments Reformation… for the Education of all poore children, and imployment of all sorts of poore, that no poore… may be enforced to beg… 1646.  (restricted access

A Model of Government for the good of the poor and the wealth of the nation.  R. HAINES, 1678. (restricted access)

A View of Civil & Ecclesiastical law,  Sir Thomas Ridley, 1634.  (restricted access)
Marine matters page 88-94.
Pirates – page 94-95
Waste ground – page 223-229.

Historie and lives of the Kings of England from William the Conqueror unto Queen Elizabeth, William Martyn,  1638. King John  page 43 –  (restricted access)

Landed Property of England… containing the purchase, the improvement and the management of landed estates,  1804,  Mr. Marshall
Page 110  On appropriating commonable lands.
Page 179    Inclosing Open Grounds.

Fragmenta  Antiquitatis or ancient  tenures of land, Thomas Blount, added notes by Josiah Beckwith, 1784.
Page 247—villenage tenure.

Acts for facilitating the Enclosure of Commons.. with a treatise on the law of rights of commons,  George Wingrove Cooke,  1856.

Commons, forests and footpaths, story of the battle during the last 45 years for public rights over the commons, forests and footpaths of England and Wales,  by Lord Eversley, 1910.

Villainage in England, essays in English Medieval History,  PAUL VINOGRADOFF, 1892.

Commoners of Dean Forest,  Cyril E. HART,  1951.

Free Miners of the Royal Forest of Dean, Cyril E. Hart,  1953.

English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields, Gilbert Slater, 1907.

AMATEUR SPORT 1889.  Published in Bristol, weekly magazine – covering; Cricket , Rowing, Cycling, Gun Sports, Athletics, Lawn Tennis, Swimming, Rugby and Football.

BARONIA ANGLICA, an history of land-honors and Baronies and of tenure in capite verified by records, THOMAS MADOX, 1741.
Page 14-15 Charter of John – “Free men”
Page 19-20 – Bristol Castle and BEER.
Page 277- Rise of Feudal tenure – anglo saxon etc.

Statutes of the Realm (from original records and authentic manuscripts) Printed by Command of His Majesty King George the Third,  1810.

Charters of Liberties; Magna Carta, Regis Johannis, page 9-16. includes facsimile of charter.

Page 114, Edward I, AD1297, Great Charter of the Liberties of England and of the Liberties of the Forest.

BROADSIDES – SOMERSET

A Meeting has been held in the parish of Buckland, for the purpose of Inclosing the Commons, John Wheadon, printed Chard,  1840s?  (Green Somerset Collection).

To MY Poor Garden Men and to the Inhabitants of Chard, John Wheadon, 1844. (Green Somerset Collection.)

TO LANDOWNERS, the alleged consequences of attempting to make the Country independent of Foreign importers of Corn. (Green Somerset Collection.)

The last dying speech, confession… THOMAS PAINE, 1792. (Green Somerset Collection.)

Arms of LIBERTY and SLAVERY, to the Gentlemen and Freeholders of the county of Middlesex,  John Wilkes, 1768, King’s Bench Prison. (Green Somerset Collection.)

Revolt of the Peasantry 1549, Julian Cornwall. North Devon (RELIGION) and Norfolk (AGARIAN) Revolts.

Rising in East Anglia in 1381, Edgar Powell, 1896. (Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire).

Great Revolt of 1381, Charles Oman  1906.  (Kent, Essex, London, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon, Home Counties & South, North and West.)

Western Rebellions of 1549, an account of the insurrections in Devonshire and Cornwall against religious innovations in the reign of EDWARD VI,  Frances Rose-Troup,  1913.

VILLAGE POLITICS, addressed to all the mechanics, journeymen and day labourers in Great Britain by WILL CHIP a country carpenter, 1793, 5th edition.
Hannah More’s view was that it was possible to make the poor physically comfortable by showing them to make better use of what they had, and ‘submissive by teaching them that joy in heaven was the recompense for deprivation on earth’. Alarmed at the growing influence of writers like Tom Paine and William Godwin, and at the prompting of the Bishop of London, she sought to write something that would open people’s eyes to the folly of notions like liberty and equality. The result was her first tract: Village Politics, by Will Chip, a Country Carpenter. The book employed four basic arguments.
That:  … the gentry look after the worthy poor; no relation exists between government and want; government is no concern of the common man; God knows what is best for his people. (Hopkins1947:208) www.infed.org/thinkers/more.htm

REMARKS OF THE PRESENT DISTRESS OF THE POOR, George Henry Law, 1830. (Bishop of Bath & Wells 1824-1845; descended from Yeoman stock on the paternal line.) Discusses rural labourer, the farmer, the peasantry, land and a decent wage.
ANNALS OF BRISTOL, COLLECTED FROM VARIOUS MANUSCRIPTS , Samuel Seyer, 1790.  inclosure 1549.  (Restricted access)

PARADISI IN SOLE PARADISUS TERRESTRIS or A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers… kitchen garden…. Orchard, John Parkinson, 1629. (restricted access)
Pease (Peas)  page 522-523 used by rich and poor.

of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists. He was apothecary to James I and a founding member of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in December 1617, and was later Royal Botanist to Charles I. He is known for two monumental works, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (Park-in-Sun’s Terrestrial Paradise, 1629), which generally describes the proper cultivation of plants; and Theatrum Botanicum (The Botanical Theatre or Theatre of Plants, 1640), the most complete and beautifully-presented English treatise on plants of its time. One of the most eminent gardeners of his day, he kept a botanical garden at Long Acre in Covent Garden, today close to Trafalgar Square, and maintained close relations with other important English and Continental botanists, herbalists and plantsmen.

One of the great divides in the history of English garden design is marked by the Civil War of 1642-49. No gardens survive from before the War and after its completion garden designers became subject to a new range of influences which brought about a dynamic period of stylistic development – and the creation of several uniquely English styles of garden and landscape design. The War and its associated troubles also caused proprietors to reconsider the objectives of garden design. They came to use their estates less as a background to gay social events and more as places of secure retreat from the dangers of political and religious strife. In so doing they looked back to an older tradition which celebrated the garden as a place in which use could be combined with beauty, pleasure with profit, and work with contemplation. This tradition derives from Greek and Roman philosophy and from Christian theology.
www.gardenvisit.com