Steel v Houghton explained

Steel v Houghton (1788)
Court:	House of Lords
Citations:	(1788) 1 H Bl 51; 126 ER 32.
Judges:	Lord Loughborough
Keywords:	gleaning property law

Steel v Houghton (1788) 1 H Bl 51; 126 ER 32,^[1] also known as the Great Gleaning Case, is a landmark judgment in English law by the House of Lords that is considered to mark the modern legal understanding of private property rights. Ostensibly the matter found that no person has a right at common law to glean the harvest of a private field, but the judgment has been taken to be a more general precedent for private land matters.

Background

In early modern England gleaning was an important source of income for labouring families, at a time when many parishes were affected by enclosure and the wholesale transformation of property rights.

Over the harvests of 1785-1787, conflict had been escalating between land owners and gleaners in the village of Timworth, Suffolk. In 1787, Mary Houghton gleaned on the farm of a wealthy land owner, James Steel, who sued for trespass.

Verdict

The court sided with landlords and found against the gleaners' claims, rejecting arguments from Mosaic Law (A precedent for gleaning is to be found in the Bible at Leviticus 19:9-10) and from the traditional Anglo-Saxon constitution as a basis for the common law.^{[2] [3]} Although precedent was raised by the gleaners that appeared to support gleaning,^[4] the court held that this was only to be viewed in the narrowest of terms with conditions, as was legislation which had provision for gleaning (the sections that were discussed dealt only with penalties). The Court held gleaning to be only a "privilege" and not a right; the poor of a parish had no legal right to glean, hence gleaning was trespass.^[5]

Lord Loughborough gave the leading judgment of the majority and argued that:

• gleaning was not a universal common law right, as it was unknown in some places
• it was uncertain who could claim such a right
• the law should not turn acts of charity into legal obligations
• Mosaic Law and pronouncements of Hale, Blackstone, Lord Justice Gilbert, and others were either irrelevant to common law precedent or at best merely dicta
• granting a right to glean would "raise the insolence of the poor"
• as well as being against the interests of the poor since, by reducing the farmers' profits, it would reduce the rate payers’ capacity to contribute to the poor rates;

Loughborough's conclusion was that the gleaners' defence was "inconsistent with the nature of property which imports absolute enjoyment"

Peter King sums up the case and its context in Timworth in his 2006 book Crime and Law in England, 1750–1840: Remaking Justice from the Margins:

Criticism

The decision has been criticized on legal grounds for ignoring statute and precedence for an outcome that denied natural justice and has been criticized by Marxist scholars as a decision that was thinly veiled class oppression, particularly citing Loughborough's choice of words.^[6]

See also

• Worlledge v Manning (1786)

Notes and References

1. The full case name is "Steel against Houghton et Uxor" ("Steel against Houghton and wife"). Since at that time a married woman's rights and duties were subsumed in those of her husband, under the doctrine of coverture, Mary Houghton could only be sued through her husband.
2. [William Selwyn (QC)|William Selwyn]
3. Book: Muncie. John. McLaughlin. Eugene. The Problem of Crime. London. Sage. 2001. 2. 114.
4. https://books.google.com/books?id=qFIDAAAAQAAJ&dq=Worlledge+v+Manning&pg=PA53 Blackstone Vol.2. page55.
5. King . Peter . Legal Change, Customary Right, and Social Conflict in Late Eighteenth-Century England: the Origins of the Great Gleaning Case of 1788 . Law and History Review . 10 . 1 . 1–31 . 1992 . 10.2307/743812. 743812 .
6. Web site: Linebaugh, Peter . At war with Jonah's whale, and after. 2011 . Marxist update. 9 August 2014. Peter Linebaugh.