But what was be done next? By his own admission, rushing off to break down the fences was out of the question. His second thought was to go to law/challenge the actions in a court of law — Buckmaster had an absolute belief in the rule of law, yet admits that he could "not see where the constitution came in to preserve the common." Law could not be not afforded, and it would be slow-moving. Earl Spencer, he remarks, had "bottomless pockets", whereas the people of Battersea and Wandsworth were on the whole poor. And almost everyone would have been dead by the time things had finally been decided, when the Common would long ago have been built over.
Even worse, there was no clear "law" against the destruction of Wandsworth Common to which he and the wider public could appeal.
And what if they had been successful? There was nothing in law to protect/sustain/? the Common in the future.
In short, at that time there was no category of "public property" in English law. Everything had to belong to someone. And since the Common was private property, its owners could flog it off to whoever they wished and for whatever purpose. This was a central tenet of British democracy and a foundation stone of the law.
Yet clearly the Common was disappearing in front of their eyes. Soon — perhaps just a few years — there would be nothing there at all. Surely this could not be right?
"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.
[But what alternatives might there be to the appeal to law? To what overriding "rights" could he appeal to halt these losses? The right to life, health and liberty? The claim that healthier workers would work better, that families would stay together, that men would be less inclined to drink to excess ...that children would grow stronger ... that they would grow to become fitter soldiers? that epidemic disease would...? [in some sense blown away by the ... of the Common?]
But having won over hearts and minds, how could that be translated into [? something legal/watertight/permanent/stable]?
[The "time immemorial" gambit...]
[The "violation/curtailment" of commoners rights" gambit...]
[The issue of commoners' rights was a difficult one. Most people today probably assume that they own Wandsworth Common — and indeed every other "Common" — so they can do more or less what they like on it — as long as they obey local bye laws/the rules and regs.
Indeed, today that's more or less right. But it wasn't so in the middle of the C19th.
Since the time of the Normans, and probably well before, very few people were actually entitled to [use/have access to common land]. Everybody was free to travel across the waste (for example on foot, or a horse or donkey, or in acart or carriage) but not over the common fields. And only those people with explicit rights could graze their animals, or cut firewood or furxe, or bracken for bedding, or extract gravel or peat — soihad those rights — such people owned freehold land or rented land from the a specific manor pliti. The latter are called "copyholders" because they had a copy of the entry in the [manorial big book]. I practice, other people with no legal right were tolerated
There were broadly two kinds of common land — land that was farmed (usually in strips fields...distributed among tenants etc) These were usually called "fields".
[In Wandswoth and Battersea shots and closes?]
But this isn't the area that we call a "Common" today... On the other hand, some areas with very poor gravelly or sandy soil were left "waste". They were never ploughed, though they were always managed in some way. For example trees were coppiced, or furze cut back or burnt to generate new fresh growth.
the obvious example near here is Wandsworth's "South Field" [i.e. Southfields]. There were other communal fields, including "North Field" (where Wandsworth Park is today), and "Bridge Field" (on the other side of the East Hill, down to the Thames — now mainly the "Tonsleys" — since Trinity Road went straight through it when it was widened in the 1960s. You can still see evidence of the fragmented landholdings in the slightly higgledy-piggledy streets and varied building styles there.
Commoners had rights over their own strips — no trespassing or damage or theft was tolerated — but [there was a season after the crops had been gathered in and stubble and weeds allowed to grow up when all commoners were at liberty to graze their animals on the stubble, old vegetable staks and weeds [dates — hence Lammas land].
There was a right that commoners could When the common field wa
[The "Bridge" in question is one that crossed the Wandle, paid for Queen Elizabeth in [??], not Wandsworth Bridge, which wasn't built until 1873.]
Wandsworth Common is a heath on the top of finger of land between two rivers — the Wandle and the "Falcon Brook" (which now runs in a pipe beneath Northcote Road, but at this time was an ornamental stream with lakes, ponds and waterfalls).
It is the remnant of the "waste" of a single very large manor — "Battersea and Wandsworth" [generally "owned: by ?].
According to Daniel Lysoms, writing in 1790/1810?, it wads abut 400 acres.
QUOTE
But when church lands were broken up and sold off in Tudor times, the manor was subdivided and given or more usually sold off to court favourites and rising men from the City. The common waste was only notionally divided between two main manors — "Battersea" and "Wandsworth "(Battersea West Heath and Wandsworth East Heath). The parish and manorial boundary just ran down the middle.
But fatefully a small rectangle was given to the new manor of Allfarthing. The "Allfarthing Piece" of waste exactly corresponds to the today's built-over area between Lyford and Heathfield Roads, Routh Road, Baskerville Road, and Dorlcote Road.
[MAP/S?]
or "heaths" of two manors — Battersea West Heath and Wandsworth East Heath.
Areas of waste were attached to particular manors... Manors were largely medieval in character ...By this time, there were relatively few commoners [JCB says just 5 or 6?] in the area, and they were not particularly interested in their rights to graze a cow or a donkey, or to gather firewood or peat. And besides, they were generally anxious not to upset their lord of the manor, Earl Spencer. Historically commoners came together to participate in a manorial court — the Court Leet — and decide collectively on how land should used. Even their collective name for the Commoners — the "Hommage" — was [?? a bit of a give-away]. And to fine or otherwise control anyone who [...].
But by now, [Buckmaster writes ironically?]
There is, I believe, such a body as the court leet, but I have never been able to understand the modern use and power of this august body. Formerly, I believe, they used to hang people; but now the copyholders meet once in three or four years, have a good dinner, drink the health of the lord of the manor and his steward, and give permission to erect windmills and enclose such portions of the common as were a nuisance to the adjoining property.
The reference to the "portions of the common as were a nuisance to the adjoining property" is to people [such as Henry McKellar, ? ? Wilson, and > Costeker,] who complained that [gypsies, prostitutes, drunkards and ?] were frequenting... They asked leave of Spencer to enclose the offending areas and thereby drive the [offenders] elsewhere.
The issue was whether lords of the manor "owned" (and hence could sell) the land, or whether they were in some sense [custodians] of it on behalf the King or Queen, and local people. [After all manors had been doled out by royalty and hence the aristocracy to ... material base of... feudal hierarchy... to provide knights... etc]
[By the "Statute of Merton" [date] lords of the manor could dispose of common land if there was no longer any need for the land to remain in common/collective use, or the commoners could be compensated by some other means. Amazingly, this medieval law was used to...held back...tied the hands of ... for most of the C19th. It was a ...obstacle to the defence of ..., and ...., The local MP, Henry Peek offered a handsome prize to any canny lawyer who could find a way round it... he published 6 winning entries as a contribution to ... One of the 6 was the... Lawrence...ultimately lead to the creation of the ? Commons Preservation Society and the National Trust...]
[Commoners would have to complain that they were losing thereby, and that they could show how.
This had worked before, in Battersea, where the loss of common land was compensated for. Some of the money accrued when Common land [which bits?] was sold off to private individuals was put into buying land and building the Lammas Hall [the name means ...]. In this way the people of Battersea as a whole had benefited from the sale of the land.
But now something even worse was in sight. Spencer, the railway companies, and the charities, were talking of selling off part or all of their land without compensation to wider society. A little later, some of those major public institututions would be privatised — for example, the RVPA for Boys (built for orphans of soldiers killed in wars?) lasted only 10 years before it was sold to the (private) Emanuel School — at the [behest] of Earl Spencer himself..
[e.g. the case brought up in the House about why the railways companies are selling off "surplus land" for buildings, or the RVPA is renting out land to Mr Neal as a Nursery (prior to selling it off)>]
[Buckmaster adopted [four] broad strategies.
He campaigned endlessly to secure the hearts and minds campaigning by every means possible among local people...
to get local and national celebs on board — of every and no party — to bring the case up in Parliament, to provide legal advice, to fund campaigns
- the rights people had enjoyed not to have their rights of way impeded... "tresspaths"... he encouraged people to break down the fences to try to force landwoners (including Spencer) to sue them — and henc [The 30+ old'uns]
- to "try the law" — the use of [odd bits of the] law — not over the Common as a whole (which was not available) but to get a landowner to bring a case, and hence incur the major expense...
- find a Commoner who might protest [Wrigbsy]
But as time went on, and Buckmaster and associates found the legal poths were blocked, in parallel/closely connected, he and others moved towards direct action.
So far as possible, people arrested and tried for [] were supported legally, econmically, and practically.
Samuel Sullings
Clarke
Until about 1831, he notes, there were few enclosures of common land, and these were confined to only a few areas and the edges. At that time, Wandsworth Common as a whole was about 300 acres or so (it may have been 400 acres a century or so before that), but mainly small bites had been taken out of the edges of the common.
But since 1831, powerful forces in the society — Earl Spencer, the railway companies, the large national "charities", the owners of some of the handsome houses and grounds around the common — had ruthlessly carved up the Common and distributed amongst themselves. It was now [date] reduced to just 150 acres.
And now they were claiming the right to dispose of "their" land to the highest bidders — in short, they were flogging land off to builders and property speculators.
And of the common waste land that remained, that was still used "in common" — for grazing, for firewood, for the extraction of modest amounts of gravel, for peat or turf for home fires and bread ovens, or for sport and recreation — it was being [ransacked and fouled and made inaccessible behind walls and fences].
Access to the Common, which had once been open to all on every side, was increasingly [fenced off] and restricted. These new fences became [...].
Buckmaster expresses 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."
[PB: 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.
[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]