You can see Buckmaster's hand everywhere in the agitation for the Common. Take this famous "DOWN WITH THE FENCES" poster produced to rally support for the defence of the Common c.1870:
"E'en now the devastation has begun,
And half the business of destruction done."
__________
To the Inhabitants & Working Men
OF WANDSWORTH & BATTERSEA
____________
Will you allow Bankrupt and Speculating Builders, Land Societies, Beershop Keepers, Railway Companies, Tailors, Gentlemen and Noble Lords, to rob you and your children of their Common Rights and Footpaths, and the liberty of walking on God's earth, without a struggle?
During the last thirty years enclosures have been made by the late Mr. W. Kellar and the late Mr. Wilson, the enclosure for the Telescope, the enclosures by the Railway Companies, the Patriotic School, the St James's Industrial School, the enclosure by the Prison, the enclosure by Mr. Costeker and Mr. Smith, making a total of upwards of 200 acres!
Most of the enclosures have been filched from the Common and resold at enormous profit.
WHAT'S THE REMEDY?
Down with the Fences! Preserve your Footpaths, show Lord Spencer and the Vinegar Men on the Board of Works, who have neglected their duty, that you are determined to maintain your rights like true Liberals and keep them like true Conservatives.
Follow the Noble Example of Mr. Augustus Smith, who destroyed three miles of Fence on Berkhampstead Common; the Men of Wigton who broke down the Fences erected by the Earl of Galloway. The men of Buckinghamshire who broke down the Fences on Northall Common; the Men of Surrey who broke down the Fences on Shalford Common, and so Preserved their Rights!
Men of Battersea and Wandsworth, GO AND DO THOU LIKEWISE!
Cursed is he who removeth his neighbours' Landmark, and robbeth the poor of his inheritance, and joineth land to land to increase his riches.
_____________
DOWN WITH THE FENCES!
Notice the heady textual mix: old-fashioned poetry ("E'en now the devastation has begun", from Oliver Goldsmith's enclosure-classic "Deserted Village" of 1770), evangelical exhortation ("The liberty of walking on God's earth", "Men of Battersea and Wandsworth, Go and do though likewise"), biblical allusion (the sentence about "moving his neighbour's landmark" cobbled together from phrases in Deuteronomy, Job, Hosea, and Proverbs, and "vinegar men", a reference to the Jesus's tormentors at the Crucifixion — when Jesus cried out for water, because he was so thirsty, they gave him vinegar).
The whole powerful text is tied together with wit and sarcasm, invective and fine phrase-making.
And lots of question and exclamation marks.
Notice too the political intelligence — its explicit call to both/i> Conservatives and Liberals (there was as yet no Labour Party): "Show Lord Spencer...that you are determined to maintain your rights like true Liberals and keep them like true Conservatives".
In another poster, designed to appeal more the affluent around the Common, he makes sure that numerous local "great-and-good" are name-checked, and organised into the Protection Society [exact title at this time?].
There is also a subtle class dynamic — one that aims always to unite the great majority against the few: the working and middle (and even upper-middle) classes against the landed aristocracy (in the person of Earl Spencer), and their [allies and servants] the railway companies, "beershop keepers", "bankrupt and speculating builders", and rogue property speculators. (Buckmaster's hostility to publicans [in the new gin palaces erupting on every corner ] we can trace in part to his own father's alcoholism.]
The reference to "Tailors", incidentally, is not a criticism of the trade or craft as a whole — it is a specific reference to one man — it was the source of Henry McKellar's great wealth. [I am looking for more info. on this. ] McKellar, who lived in the large "Wandsworth Lodge" off Trinity Road, had acquired from Earl Spencer all of the land along to Burntwood Lane, including an area of Wandsworth Common (now "Trinity Field"), and all of the Common between St James's Drive and Bellevue Road ("McKellar's triangle").
Buckmaster is a master wordsmith, his literary style, themes — and even his theatrical mode of delivery — inspired by his friend Charles Dickens.
Indeed, when he addressed a large meeting in the Mechanics' Institute, South Shields, in 1869, newspaper reports remark that "Listening to Mr Buckmaster is like a reading from Dickens:
Mr. Buckmaster... possesses the rare power of surrounding dry facts with interesting circumstances to so great degree, that from him a scientific lecture, while loses none of its importance, sounds more like a reading from Dickens than a recital of dry musty laws and principles.
[Source: Newcastle Daily Chronicle — Monday 18 January 1869 .]
In fact, Buckmaster regularly provided Dickens with information about scandals such as the death of [150] children from cholera on Drouet's "Farm" (a crowded orphanage for illegitimate children) in Tooting in 1849, or the mistreatment of young offenders at Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight [date?] (which got him the sack).]
Buckmaster was for a while without a clear idea of what to do. He was a passionate advocate that the law should provide a remedy for every wrong or grievance (and if it didn't, the law should be changed so that it did), but "I could not see where the constitution came in to preserve the common."
"I saw, what everybody saw, that the common was fast melting away. Private owners adjoining the common were constantly making improvements by adding portions of the common to their own property. The railways had enclosed acres not required or provided for in these acts, and in time this surplus was divided among their head officials.
"Six acres were enclosed for a telescope which was never put up, speculating builders turned a greedy eye on what remained, and here and there, like the scouts of an army, things called villas sprang up like mushrooms. The tallest and ugliest production of compo. and rotten bricks at the corner of each street were intended for public-houses.
[PB: "Like scouts from an army"! And below, WONDERFUL QUOTE:]
"The common was threatened on every side, and the increasing army of landgrabbers and jerry-builders would soon have joined hands on the last square foot of turf, and one of the most lovely commons within a few miles of Charing Cross would have become a wilderness of bricks and chimney-pots.
[PB: "Six acres were enclosed for a telescope which was never put up." Really? This is odd! How could he not have known it had inded been built?]
[PB: "compo." = mortar: "Lime-cement mortar, which is also known as composition or "compo" mortar".]
He continues, expressing his desperation at this time:
"We were told there was no remedy. The gravelpits were filled up with garbage and rubbish for the foundations of eligible villas and ground-rents. All these enclosures were no doubt made with the formal sanction of the lord of the manor on the representation of his agents, and as the common was for the most part surrounded by poor inhabitants there was no money for litigation, the only cheap comfort was to grumble.
But he notes things are not equally bad everywhere:
"The adjacent common [i.e. Clapham Common] was, on the other hand, surrounded by rich merchants and bankers with large houses and grounds, and any attempt on the common even for railways was threatened with a powerful resistance.
So what was to be done?
"I was unable to help these poor potato men, but it occurred to me that a letter to the newspapers might attract attention. I wrote three letters to the daily papers. Only one, the Standard, inserted the letter, but this was sufficient; other letters followed, and there was evidently a strong growing public sentiment against the further enclosure of commons near London.
[PB: It is not clear exactly when this occurred...1850s? e.1860s? Or exactly why the two men had approached Buckmaster. It seems likely that he had already been prominent in local political activity. His letter to the Standard should help. I MUST FIND THIS LETTER!
The Standard, founded 1827, was a prominent C19 newspaper. Its late edition became the Evening Standard in 1859.
JCB continues: "A public meeting was held in each of the parishes adjoining the common, and resolutions were passed, but still the enclosures went on."
[Source: Link]
CHECK for Buckmaster and Wandsworth Common in earlier years and those years I have nothing for him. There may be other refs. He appears to vanish in relayion to WC after 1871 — or does he?