Early 19th-century England was almost unique among major nations in having no class of landed smallholding peasantry. The Enclosure Acts of rural England contributed to the plight of rural farmworkers. Between 1770 and 1830 about of common land were enclosed. The common land had been used for centuries by the poor of the countryside to graze their animals and grow their own produce. This land was now divided up among the large local landowners, leaving the landless farmworkers solely dependent upon working for their richer neighbours for a cash wage. Whilst this may have offered a tolerable living during the boom years of the Napoleonic wars, when labour had been in short supply and corn prices high, the return of peace in 1815 resulted in plummeting grain prices and an oversupply of labour.