WINSTANLEY AND THE DIGGERS, 16491999
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Winstanley and the Diggers, 16491999
edited by
ANDREW BRADSTOCK
First published in 2000 by
FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED
Published 2013 by Routledge
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Copyright 2000 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Winstanley and the Diggers, 16491999
1. Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-1676 Political and social views 2. Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-1676 Influence 3. Levellers 4. Great Britain Politics and government 16251649 5. England Social conditions 17th century
I. Bradstock, Andrew
322.42094209032
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winstanley and the Diggers, 16491999/editor Andrew Bradstock.
p. cm.
This group of studies first appeared in a special issue of Prose Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, August 1999 verso t.p.
Includes index.
1. Winstanley, Gerrard, b. 1609. 2. Levellers. 3. Great Britain History Puritan Revolution, 16421660. 4. Radicalism Great Britain History 17th century. I. Bradstock, Andrew. II. Prose studies.
DA429.W5 W56 2000
941-dc21
00-035875
This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue of Prose Studies (ISSN 0144-0357), Vol.22, No.2 (August 1999), [Winstanley and the Diggers, 16491999].
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-65105-7 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-68157-3 (pbk)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.
Contents
Andrew Bradstock
Gerald Aylmer
James D. Alsop
David Taylor
John Gurney
Nigel Smith
Elaine Hobby
John Gurney
Claire Jowitt
Warren Chernaik
James Holstun
Christopher Rowland
Seven of these papers those by Aylmer, Alsop, Taylor, Smith, Hobby, Holstun and Rowland were first given at the Hearts and Spades conference held on 9 and 10 April 1999 at Brooklands College, Weybridge and St Marys Church, Walton (by kind permssion of the Vicar, Canon Timothy Sedgley). This conference was one of several events held in the vicinity of St Georges Hill, Surrey, England, in 1999 to commemorate the Diggers occupation of that site which began on 1 April 1649.
The editor would like to thank, for their help with the preparation of this volume, Tom Corns, Sonia Craig, John Gurney, Andrew Hadfield, Ann Hughes, Claire Jowitt, David Loewenstein and David McLellan. The advice and support of Ronald Corthell (editor of Prose Studies) and Joan Dale Lace (Frank Cass Ltd) was also very much appreciated.
After Winstanley himself the person most frequently cited in this collection is Christopher Hill, who, in an extraordinarily productive career spanning more than 60 years, has done more than any other scholar to stimulate research into the civil war radicals, in particular Winstanley and the Diggers, and bring them to a wider audience. Dr Hill was unable to take part in the events organized to remember the Diggers in 1999, but it was the wish of all at the Hearts and Spades conference that greetings be sent to him on their behalf. Perhaps the dedication of these essays to him will go someway towards conveying the affection, esteem and gratitude felt by all at that event towards him and his work, as well as reminding him if any reminder were needed that interest in the Diggers is still very much alive as we enter the new century.
When quoting from Winstanleys writings contributors have used either the Sabine or Hill editions, which are cited as follows throughout:
Works: George H. Sabine (ed.), The Works of Gerrard Winstanley; with an appendix of documents relating to the Digger movement (Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 1941, and NY: Russell & Russell, 1965).
LFOW: Christopher Hill (ed.), The Law of Freedom and other writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
ANDREW BRADSTOCK
One of the great ironies about the Diggers attempt in 1649 to re-make the Earth as a common treasury is that the site they chose to begin this task is now as enclosed a piece of land as it is possible to conceive. The home of rock stars, TV presenters and other assorted millionaires, St Georges Hill, Weybridge, is one of the most exclusive private estates in England, a sort of British counterpart to Los Angeles Beverly Hills. Those who delighted in the Diggers downfall, in their failure to stop the rich from bagging and barning up the treasures of the Earth, could scarce have imagined how total that failure would ultimately turn out to be.
That the Hill bears no trace of its earlier communist settlers is therefore none too surprising: there is no plaque or memorial, no Everard Avenue or Winstanley Way, no Diggers Fairway on the beautifully manicured golf-course.1 Yet if the Hills present dwellers had been only vaguely aware of its historical significance before 1999, in the course of that year they were quickly projected up a steep learning curve as in April the nearby towns of Walton and Weybridge hosted a rally, conference, exhibition and march to honour the anniversary of the Diggers occupation of the Hill, and in the same month a not entirely symbolic re-staging of that event took place on the Hill itself. The efforts of the latter-day Diggers to re-enact the past, which included turning the soil, planting crops and erecting temporary shelter, were not entirely appreciated by their involuntary hosts this time not Francis Drake MP but the North Surrey Water Board though the latter did go to some trouble themselves to ensure no historical detail would be missed by seeking the termination of their stay at the earliest opportunity. Within two weeks the new Diggers were off the Hill, though with the aid of some benign media coverage (the like of which Winstanley could only have dreamed) they had made public again the issue on which the original movement made its stand, the inequity of the practice of buying and selling for private gain that which [i]n the beginning of time the great creator Reason made to be a common treasury, the Earth.
