Enclosure Acts 

They system of enclosure was designed to encourage large scale production of farming produce to supply a wider area, notably the growing towns, rather then the farmer supplying his own needs and that of his close local neigbours. The system was successful and as such many farms became very productive, but on the whole the enclosure acts, were a carve up of the common land previously enjoyed by all, to graze there animals on or to gather fire wood from forests & woods. The wastes were areas of lands which to the most part were un-culturalable. They were fit only for grazing animals on, i.e. the moorland areas, deep valleys & slops. The 'in people' of the time, being land owners or members of the Borough Council (burgages) held meeting to carve up the common land in the parish between themselves. If you held no land or property in the 1500- mid 1800 you had no legal right to claim any common/waste lands. As such the local land owners claimed all the lands for themselves and set about enclosing them with hedges and walls. That's the origins of the numerous stone walls covering the northern counties of England. There a kind of testament to the greed of the few! (My view only)! There are maps of the commons for Chapel and were drawn up to map and divide the common land. 

There were many enclosure acts carried out in the 1600 &1700's  and ever more so in the first part of the 1800's.
During the reign of Victoria 4,700 separate Enclosure Acts were made. The labouring man had a simple reason to damn the enclosure acts. He merely in many places found himself deprived of immemorial ways and means of carving out a life. Earlier in the 15th century discontent was caused when less scrupulous landowners in other parts of the county, they began to enclose by hedges (for sheep farming) considerable tracts of common land or "waste" which had previously formed an essential factor in the livelihood of the tenant farmer. Land which had given occupation to 100 men or more could be easily worked by a couple of shepherds and a dog. Much unemployment and misery ensued. The yeoman freeholder flourished as he turned his acres to grazing and he would go to claim ever more common land as mentioned.