The Enclosure Movement was a push in the 18th and 19th centuries to take land that had formerly been owned in common by all members of a village, or at least available to the public for grazing animals and growing food, and change it to privately owned land, usually with walls, fences or hedges around it.

In general, the Enclosure Movement involved the British parliament passing a series of acts that allowed increased private ownership, which was a key characteristic of the Industrial Revolution. It forced the poor people to migrate to centralized locations such as industrial cities and towns and to seek work in factories and mines.