Agricultural History Review, Volume 69 Part 2 (2021), pp. 192–212

This paper explores the creation and management of post-enclosure poor lands and variations in the distribution of the benefits derived from these lands between the 1630s and 1840s, with particular attention to the data gathered from across the nation for the Brougham commission reports. It shows that these lands were managed in three broad ways: by trustees allowing the poor to harvest resources directly, by trustees letting (allowing occupancy) to the poor, or by trustees leasing to tenants and utilizing the income, where the trustees were expected to provide annual accounts audited by the inhabitants. It will also illustrate the two main categories of relief that were distributed to the poor, in coal or cash, and the legal procedures used to prevent the trustees acting in breach or requiring them to perform their obligations to secure poor lands as charitable funds. 

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