Enclosure Movement

In the early 1700s, there was an "enclosure movement" that was a cause of the industrial revolution in England. The enclosure movement was this: wealthy farmers bought land from small farmers, then benefited from economies of scale in farming huge tracts of land.

The enclosure movement led to improved crop production, such as the rotation of crops. People began moving to cities, where they could more easily work in factories than on farmland. In England, population growth caused former farmers or children of farmers to migrate from southeastern England to the northwest, where factories were being built.