The Village Labourer is a detailed and compelling account of the implementation of the Enclosure Acts of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the disastrous effects that the enclosure of the common lands had on agricultural labourers in England. Powerless to stop them, driven to poverty and despair, unable to support their families, and reliant on the charity of the poor rates, there was widespread anger across rural England in 1830.