All Souls College, the Senior Bursar of Merton College, the Clerk of the Peace for the County of Warwick, and the Earl of Leicester for permission to examine the manuscripts in their possession. The maps illustrating enclosure are taken from the beautiful maps of the All Souls estates; my thanks are due to the College for allowing me to use them, and to Mr. W. Tomlinson, of the Oxford Tutorial Class at Longton, for helping me to prepare them for reproduction. Circumstances preventing me from working in the Record Office, I was so fortunate as to secure the co-operation of Miss Niemeyer and Miss L. Drucker, who have transcribed for me a large number of surveys and rentals. How much I owe to their help will be apparent to any one who consults my footnotes and references. Among those who have aided me with advice and information I must mention Professor Vinogradoff, Professor Unwin, and Professor Powicke, the late Miss Toulmin Smith, Mr. Kenneth Leys, Mr. F.W. Kolthammer, Lieut.-Colonel Fishwick, Dr. G.H. Fowler, and the Hon. Gerard Collier. Especially great are my obligations to Mr. R.V. Lennard and Mr. H. Clay, who have read through the whole of the following pages in manuscript or in proof, and who have helped me with numberless criticisms and improvements.

In conclusion I owe two debts which are beyond acknowledgment. The first is to my wife, who has collaborated with me throughout, and without whose constant assistance this book could not have been completed. The second is to the members of the Tutorial Classes conducted by Oxford University, with whom for the last four years it has been my privilege to be a fellow-worker. The friendly smitings of weavers, potters, miners, and engineers, have taught me much about problems of political and economic science which cannot easily be learned from books.

R.H.T.

Manchester, April 1912.

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