What happened to the poor in England after the Enclosure Movement?
After the Enclosure Movement, the poor people in England were adversely affected as :
- When the fences came up, the enclosed land became the exclusive property of landowners.
- The poor could no longer collect firewood from the forests or graze their cattle on the common land.
- They could no longer collect apples and berries or hunt small animals for meat. Nor could they gather stalk that lay on the fields after the crops were cut.
- Everything belonged to the landlords, everything had a price which the poor could not afford to pay.
- The poor were displaced from the land and lost their customary rights. From the midlands, they moved to the Southern countries of England in search of jobs as agricultural labourers. But they could not find secure jobs anywhere.