Publications
Land purchasers at enclosure: evidence from West Sussex, by John Chapman, published August 1977 in The Local Historian (vol. 12, no. 7, article, pp.337-341) View Online
Abstract:Analysis of the process of enclosure, focussing on the compulsory sale of land ('sale allotments') which was required to offset the costs of the enclosure itself, and using this to indicate the process of land redistribution. The paper uses evidence from twenty parishes in West Sussex where this procedure was followed. It is concluded that in most cases it was those who were financially in the most favourable position - usually the wealthier members of local society - who were in theory best-placed to benefit from the sales, but that they did not exercise this option. Instead, therefore, it was the farmers and tradesmen who were the main beneficiaries, purchasing land at favourable prices as an investment. This resulted in a redistribution of landholdings and also of the amounts of land held by individuals in the middle ranks of society - a significant change in the pattern and tenure of land in the community.
The Parliamentary Enclosures of West Sussex, by J. Chapman, published 1980 in Southern History (vol. 2, article, pp.73-91)
The Unofficial Enclosure Proceedings. A Study of the Horsham Enclosure 1812-1813, by John Chapman, published 1982 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 120, article, pp.185-192) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 8620] & The Keep [LIB/500307] & S.A.S. library
The influence of the agricultural executive committees in the first world war: some evidence from West Sussex, by J. Chapman and S. Seeliger, published 1991 in Southern History (vol. 13, no. 1, article, pp.105-122)
Open fields and their disappearance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the evidence from Sussex, by John Chapman and Sylvia Seeliger, published 1995 in Southern History (vol. 17, article, pp.88-97)