"Who Steals the Common..." Between the 16th & the 19th centuries, much of the open land, commons or woods south of the river was enclosed for development, usually by rich landowners or sold off for house building. In many of the commons, local people had traditionally benefitted from customary rights of use, mostly grazing of animals & wood for fuel, but also often sowing of small plots on the fringes of commons for market gardens or feeding themselves.

But despite its name, common land was rarely if ever, land held in common: it was almost always land owned by the Lord of the Manor, on which over time other local people had come to exercise some rights. But these rights often had no legal weight, they were part of an unwritten social contract... As time went on the 'commoners', those with acknowledged customary rights, could become wealthy individuals themselves. Thus later struggles sometimes developed into struggles between different local rich persons. Gradually, as capitalism developed, slowly replacing a society of complex vertical social obligations & custom with one based entirely on profit, the impetus was on for landowners to replace traditional land use with intensive agriculture. This demanded the clearing of woodland & the exclusion of the poor from the commons.

Those deprived not only lost traditional ways of making a living, or in many cases ways of topping up incomes as labourers or craftspeople; they were experiencing the change in class relations at first hand, losing everything bar the ability to sell their labour... "In an increasingly legalistic age, an unwritten agreement counted for little in the face of the new law ..." "Forbeare to hunt, chace, molest or hurt the king's stagges..." This process of course did not take place without massive upheavals. Traditional rights of access to the commons had always been a battleground, not a happy interdependence between landowner and tenants. One of the biggest areas of dispute was poaching; especially in royal woodlands, the lower classes were banned from catching many animals, reserved for hunting by aristos. Game Acts, like that of 1671, reserved hunting for the rich and titled, banning even the possession of nets, snares, even certain types of dogs. As the poor's diet was often short of meat, poaching was always widespread. In many areas it transcended an individual survival technique & grew into mass collective resistance, as in Windsor Great Park or Cannock Chase, where large numbers would go disguised to poach en masse. In South London, Dulwich Wood (much larger then than the woods of that name that survives) was a royal playground: locals were ordered to "forbeare to hunt, chace, molest or

LEVELLERS AND DIGGERS The first great wave of enclosures of the commons took place in the late 16th to mid 17th centuries. Pressures for greater profits had already led to the seizure of lands owned by the monasteries by forward-looking nobles & the rising richer peasantry. Kicking thousand off the commons, however, meant they kicked back. Already in 1549, there had been mass rebellion in Norfolk & elsewhere against enclosures. As enclosure increased, so did resistance to it.

The early 17th century brought mass open warfare against enclosing landowners: most famously in the midlands in 1607, where thousands of the landless poor fought the militia, destroying fences, & breaking open enclosures. Interestingly this was where the names of Levellers & Diggers were seemingly first adopted or used to describe these poor rebels. Later of course these names would assume huge political significance.

SYDENHAM COMMON: "Above 500 poore householders... greatly relieved by the sayde Common." As part of this wave of rebellion, a long anti-enclosure fight was beginning for Sydenham Common.

Sydenham Common no longer exists: it covered a large area between modern Sydenham and Forest Hill. The battle against enclosure began around 1605, as a local squire, Henry Newport, attempted to fence a large part of the common off for 'improvement'. At this time there were large numbers of squatters on the common, encouraged by the lack of restrictions there on grazing of animals.

They supported themselves almost entirely by raising pigs, cows and sheep: "above 500 poore householders with wives and manye children greatly relieved by sayde Common and would be utterly undone yf yt should be unjustlly taken from them.".

After years of inconclusive legal wrangling, Newport and his allies tried to violently evict the poor and enclose the land around 1614. Locals apparently led by the vicar of Lewisham, Abraham Colfe, tried legal methods of challenging this, going to court & marching en masse to petition the king in 1614. But although the court in fact ruled the enclosure illegal, Newport wouldn't budge: this led people to adopt the preferred tactic of tearing down his fences and filling in his ditches. Every time he put fences up again crowds gathered to break them down. Their men "drave out and killed .

DEER HUNTERS (IE POACHERS), 1720

BARNES STORMING Around the same time, a similar process was underway on Westwood Common, in Barnes. The monastery that owned the Common had been dissolved in 1531; since then a struggle had been taking place between locals determined to maintain rights to common pasturing, while new landowners attempted to enclose land to improve it, ie increase its productivity and thus its profitability. In 1614 a new owner enclosed the whole common, digging ditches and removing cattle. 100 villagers marched to petition the king, and a court hearing eventually reversed the enclosure.

Enclosures were often opposed by a section of the establishment. Especially in the 17th century, the king & certain sections of the nobility sought allies among the rural population against the rising merchant & improving classes. In this power struggle, pressure could sometimes be put on the authorities, to stop enclosures. There was also an ideological divide: protecting the poor against too-extreme exploitation as part of a paternalist, vertically interdependent society opposed to ruthless destruction of social ties that could lead to mass upheaval.

RICHMOND PARK: 'diverse outrages and disorders' Ruling out some enclosures by lesser mortals didn't stop king Charles I from trying his hand at enclosure: always short of cash, he not only attempted to raise money through agricultural improvement, but was also fond of creating vast new hunting parks. In the 1620s he established Richmond Park by simply seizing common land from several parishes (Richmond, Petersham, Mortlake & small bits of Kingston and Putney Commons were enclosed) & even annexing property from wealthy landowners.

Locals lost access to wood cutting & other fuels, to water supplies, grazing land. Even the king's supporters thought this a bad move: one advised him that such behaviour was likely to bring about rebellion. Which of course it did. When Charlie lost his head, Richmond Park, like other royal property, was seized by the Commonwealth, but the Restoration led to it being enclosed again. This grievance burned locally for over 100 years.

In the 18th century, the Park was farmed out to rich politicians & royals, who took the post of 'Park Ranger', which guaranteed a large income for them (around £6,500 a year, a huge sum then) and the crown. Prime Minister Robert Walpole (a master of using offices to increase his vast wealth) effectively held the position (his son was officially the Ranger), and resisted calls to allow access to the park. The park became a resort of the nobility and royalty, let in on a ticket or key system: commoners were excluded. Ladders over the walls were replaced by man-traps (ouch!) As the park was full of deer, rabbits and hares, poaching was a local way of life, especially as neighbouring Wimbledon Common was a notorious haunt of poachers, deer-stealers & robbers. The enclosure of the Park stepped up these struggles to bitter heights: between 1723 and 1725 there was a mini-war between deer-stealers & gamekeepers, involving arson of keepers' houses, and 'diverse outrages and disorders'. At least 2 poachers were executed. John Huntridge, landlord of the Halfway House Inn on the wall of the Park, near Robin Hood Gate, was charged with harbouring deerstealers, but he was acquitted, to popular acclaim. Walpole backed the case against Huntridge the landlord's acquittal was widely seen not only as a local matter but as one in the eye for the rotten system of patronage and legal extortion Walpole and his class exercised though their control of public offices.

(Initially carriages only were let in on a ticket scheme, but mass forgery of tickets resulted!) Lewis' printing business in fact went broke due to his legal campaign (any connection between this and mass forgery of tickets?), but in his poverty was helped out by Richmond residents who had a whipround to provide a small annual grant for him. Aaah! SYDENHAM AGAIN The 1750s also saw a renewal of the fight for Sydenham Common. In Coopers Wood, the southern part of the common, the commoners in 1754 several times threw down fences and reclaimed rights of access and gathering fuel etc. Cooper's Wood had first been illegally enclosed around 1540, an PARISHIONERS, LED BY THE VICAR, BEAT THE BOUNDS OF THEIR PARISH AND ASSERT THEIR RIGHT OF WAY INTO RICHMOND PARK BY BREAKING DOWN THE WALL! PROBABLY 1751.

Four decades later, a last ditch stand seems to have taken place in Colson's Wood. In 1792, Michael Bradley and others broke in to assert their traditional rights to cut wood, which had been held 200 years and more. Samuel Atkinson, who had enclosed the land, selling building plots on the new main road, met them & warned them off, threatening them. He then shot Bradley dead. Although the case caused uproar, it seems to have marked almost the end of a near-200 year struggle for common rights here: Sydenham Common was enclosed finally around 1812.

The 1790s to the early 19th century saw the next great wave of enclosures taking place in the London area. The long war against revolutionary and Napoleonic France increased pressure for land to grow food, as the country faced economic blockade. Commons were also appropriated for drilling of troops and citizen volunteer brigades: fear of invasion but also fear of a radicalised and hungry working class at home caused the gentry and better off middle class to arm themselves and their lackeys.

HERE COME THE MEN IN BLACK...

On Streatham Common, the local poor had long had the right to cut furze (gorse bushes) for fuel. The Lord of the Manor, the Duke of Bedford, began around this time to strip the furze to sell for profit, depriving the commoners of their customary rights. He also enclosed part of the land here... In response in 1794 a mob of local residents burnt the furze before he could collect it; simultaneously, "6 men dressed in black" drove up in a hackney carriage and demolished his paled enclosure. The sinister way this is described is worth relating to the climate of the times respectable folk were terrified by Jacobin Terror in the French Revolution, and by reformers and fear of rowdy mobs at home. Home-grown radicals like the London Corresponding Society were getting crowds of thousands to mass rallies calling for political change and opposing war with Revolutionary France.

Sadly a strip of land on Streatham Common was enclosed around 1880, despite opposition.

WE'RE WITH THE WOOLWICH In May 1802 Woolwich Common was partly enclosed by the Board of Ordnance as a drilling ground for troops, and cottages and other small plots were cleared away and furze eradicated. The sale was voted for by the Board of Ordnance: the government paid £3000 for it. However a surveyors report in 1809 asserted that the Manor of Woolwich had always belonged to the Crown anyway! Local historian WT Vincent reckoned this a good deal for the Board, but his dealings in the Plumstead affair (see below) show where his sympathies lay.

Gradually the Common was more & more encroached upon. A Woolwich Committee formed later which campaigned & negotiated to preserve access to the remainder: though it is still MOD property.

DOING THE SOUTH LAMBETH WALK There are records of enclosures around 1806 for South Lambeth Common, around modern-day

UNDERGROUND, OVERGROUND...

1812 saw the renewal of a long struggle on Wimbledon Common. In the 18th century locals had rights of access at certain times of the year, to cut wood & graze animals, & to cut peat & loam to sell, which had been the source of struggles between them & landowners for years. An attempt at enclosure in the late 17th century by the then Lord of the Manor had been prevented by a bloke called Russell. Around 1723 there was unrest in the area, when the Duchess of Marlborough bought the manor and attempted to curtail commons rights. Until the 19th century the many oak pollards on the Common provided winter fuel for many local folk. In 1812, the Lord of the Manor broke commons agreement by cutting them all down and selling the timber, causing protests. Effectively stripping the common of trees deprived commoners of their right to this wood. The poor of the parish were still allowed to cut furze in the winter, and freehold and copyhold tenants had the right to graze cattle. many disputes arose over gravel-digging and cutting peat and loam: Commoners objected to the Lord's wholesale pillagging of the Common.

Struggles over Wimbledon Common would break out again in the 1860s...

CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF ANTI-ENCLOSURE STRUGGLES As the 19th century progressed, and London grew in size, pressure over large areas of open woodland and heath increased. In common with other large cities, the capital absorbed huge numbers of people, especially working people, often crowded into badly built housing tightly packed together.

Further out, the suburbs were starting to appear, where better built houses were springing up for the expanding middle classes. These developments led to the disappearance of many commons, woods and fields around the city and many open spaces within it.

As the century went on the nature of struggles over space began to change. In the 17th & 18th centuries lords of the manor had mostly attempted enclosures in a drive towards 'improvements' in agriculture, & a more profitable exploitation of resources on the land. But landowners' power began to decline after the repeal of the Corn Laws (which had prevented imports of grain, to the profit of British landowners) in 1846: free trade in food struck at their control of food prices and hit the value of agricultural land.

From the 1830s on, the pressure was for land for development, mostly for housing, whether built by the landowner or the land being sold off. From the 1840s there was also the rapid expansion of railways: much open land and also poor housing was devastated in the laying of lines. Big South London landowners like the Spencer family saw opportunities in flogging off tracts of land for housing developments.

Correspondingly, the resistance to enclosures and development from commoners with traditional rights or interest in commons for economic reasons, gradually transformed into struggles for open space for recreation. The subsistence economy that supported the poor had been undermined by rural enclosures: to a large extent they had been driven from the land into the cities. As throughout the century, factory reform and economic growth reduced working hours, 'leisure' time for working and middle classes became an issue. Particularly in the rapidly expanding city, green space for people's after work activities became important.

Some of the Committee that pushed though the creation of Victoria Park in East London, for instance, hoped that landscaping a previous haunt of Chartists and rioting radicals would have a gentrifying effect on the neighbourhood. In South London, Battersea Fields, until the 19th century a place of bawdy working class recreation, including animal fairs, stalls, drinking etc, became Battersea Park. Local vicar Reverend Fallon proposed building of the modern park to encourage the poor to reform and "become orderly". As part of this process in 1852 all persons 'trespassing' on the park with animals or barrows were ordered to be nicked. Kennington Common, long a mass meeting place for working class radicals( eg the last great Chartist rally in 1848), was also enclosed into a landscaped & policed park in the 1850s: again the vicar of local St Marks Church was instrumental in forcing though the enclosure. However this often only moved the 'disorderly crowds' elsewhere.

In 1852, there were protests from the wealthy folk around Clapham Common about the class of people using the common, rowdy crowds having moved here from recently fenced in Kennington Common.

STOCKWELL GREEN At Stockwell Green, the old green was used by locals for recreation -often rowdy. In the 17th Century Stockwell had been infamous as a smugglers' stronghold, and had a long history of defying authority. As the area got posher, more up market residents objected to the 'nuisance' caused by plebs on the green. In the 1850s, Barret, a local gent, bought it up, built railings & planted it. Locals broke down the fence to resume their partying. In 1855 a toffs' committee erected a new fence, excluding the public. Eventually a case went to court in 1874, but the green was built over and lost.

But the old spirit dies hard: in March 1990, as we rioted against Lambeth Council setting the Poll Tax, we danced and turned over cop cars in Stockwell Road, as anti-poll tax banners fluttered from the windows of the squat on the site of the Green. The Green will rise again! THE 1860s... & THE COMMONS PRESERVATION SOCIETY Crucial to many of the struggles from the 1860s was the passing of a General Inclosure Act of 1845, which meant two-thirds of the commoners had to agree to a common being enclosed, and the desirability of enclosure had to be shown when in the vicinity of a town. The Act opened the door for legal challenges to enclosures, and over the next twenty years, many green spaces were saved in this way.

WOMBLING FREE The aristocratic Spencer family (ancestors of Princess Di) were Lords of the Manor in Wimbledon,

They were probably South London's biggest enclosers.

In 1864, Earl Spencer announced he had decided to sell 300 acres of Wimbledon Common & enclose the 700 remaining. It seems he had the idea that it should be made into a park. He claimed the land was "boggy" and "noxious mists and fogs" arose from it and "great nuisance was caused by gypsies" who camped on it. He was opposed by wealthier commoners, who refused his proposals to buy out their rights, claiming their consent was needed over any changes to the Common. Spencer claimed to be acting in the interests on local people, and didn't feel the Commoners had any right to interfere with his plans for his land. Big mistake! The Earl failed in his plans to buy out the Commoners: they formed a Wimbledon Common Committee, led by Henry Peek (of biscuit manufacturing family Peek Frean!), to fight the Earl in court. The struggle was very much led by affluent residents. In 1870 by asserting common rights they forced a settlement & Earl Spencer gave the land to a trust which managed the land 'for the public', to keep it open as a public green space.

Leading members of the Wimbledon committee were instrumental in 1865 in setting up the Commons Preservation Society, a committee of the great and good to oppose enclosure of commons nationally. The CPS was involved in many of the battles to save green spaces in South London in the late 19th century. While their actions were aimed at lobbying and court battles, they often went in tandem with more unofficial mass actions. They were instrumental in getting the 1866 Metropolitan Commons Act passed, which protected land that could be shown to have been the focus of common rights in the past.

PEEK AND SPENCER Wandsworth Common is the remains of more extensive commonland which earlier went by a number of names including Battersea West Heath and Wandsworth East Heath. It was part of the wastes of the Manor of Battersea and Wandsworth.

Between 1794 & 1866, 53 enclosures reduced its size; most of the enclosures were carried out by local bigwigs the Spencer family (later of Princess Di fame).

Earl Spencer's actions sparked protests in December 1827, when "a very numerous meeting of the most affluent and respectable gentry" of Battersea, Plough Green was around this area.

The situation in Wandsworth was made worse by the Common being split in 3 by railway lines in the 1840s, & the enclosure of 60 acres for an asylum! At some point in the late 1840s, a Mr Parsons and others broke fences and were charged, but the case was dismissed, possibly on the grounds that they were asserting a traditional right of access.

Attempts by local people to preserve the Common against further encroachment began in earnest in 1868 when appeals were made to the Metropolitan Board of Works to take over responsibility, following the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866, but this was initially unsuccessful.

The East Common was the centre of a fierce struggle in the 1860s. Mr Kellar, who owned land on the Common south of Bellevue road, claimed he had to enclose it to stop gypsies camping there & ruining it, but it came out that he had supplied them with booze & then kicked up a fuss when they got pissed & had a rowdy party.

Sneaky! In 1869, 2000 people pulled down enclosure fences where Chivalry Road is now, and the following year Henry Peek (see Wimbledon Common) got a Common Defence Committee (later the Wandsworth Common Preservation Society) together to save the land threatened with development by the Spencers.

Large public meetings were held in Wandsworth, Putney and Battersea. The Committee fought an unsuccessful legal battle that April over Plough Green (now Strathblaine Road, Vardens Road, off St Johns Hill).

"At each crashing of the fence there was a great hooting and hurrahing." This went hand in hand with direct action... On May 14th 1869, John Buckmaster, a leading light of the Committee, was had up at Wandsworth Police Court, accused of "wilfully and maliciously destroying a fence enclosing the property of Mr Christopher Todd at Wandsworth Common." Todd had bought the land from the railway Company, but campaign-

Breaking down the fence, Buckmaster stated that he was asserting common right. Public meetings on the Common (including one allegedly 5000-strong in January 1868) had passed resolutions to tear down Todd's fences.

In the months following fund-raising efforts and lobbying of support accelerated. And so did the wanton destruction of property. On April 13th 1870, "a large number of persons assembled and asserted their right of way by breaking down the fences". Some 300-400 people armed with hatchets and pickaxes re-established a footpath enclosed by a Mr Costeker at Plough Green. "At each crashing of the fence there was a great hooting and hurrahing." In June of the same year there were protests at Spencer's plans to enclose part of Putney Common.

Eventually Earl Spencer agreed to transfer most of the common to the Defence Committee excluding the area which later became Spencer Park.

The agitation to save Wandsworth Common, although led by wealthier residents, involved working class mass involvement, including mass meetings in local factories.

A concrete pillar celebrating these struggles against the Spencer family was later erected in a tunnel in Paris.

TOOTING POPULAR FRONT In 1794 there had been 'local troubles' in Tooting: residents rioted when landowner Lady Pitches fenced in the Village Green.

So local gent WS Thompson ought to have known better, when, having bought Tooting Graveney Common from the Duke of Bedford in 1861, he started proceedings to enclose the land.

Thompson was originally thought locally to have opposed enclosure: for this reason other anti-enclosure locals didn't bid against him at the sale. He was a bit dodgy though: 25 acres were immediately fenced off. In 1868, a protest meeting was held in the Infant School, Tooting Broadway, where locals decided to break down the fences. Every time fences were put up they were torn down. Thompson brought cases for trespass against some of those involved, including a Mr Miles: but commoners filed a countersuit in July 1868 over the legality of the enclosure. Thompson maintained no-one had exercised common rights for years, and that there were no freehold rights, so he could enclose whatever he liked. In 1870 a court decided the enclosures were illegal.

5 years later the Common was bought for the public.

1870 was a busy year. As well as riots in Wandworth and Plumstead, there were mass meetings on Blackheath in May, convened by the Advanced Liberal Association of Greenwich, against plans to enclose part of the heath. The same year 2000 people met at Mill Pond Bridge, Rotherhithe, to oppose efforts by the Metropolitan Board of Works to build on part of Southwark Park. Called by the Radical Association of Southwark, there were threats to destroy any fences or buildings put up.

Builders trade Union leader and member of the General Council of the International Workingmans' Association George Odger was a notable speaker.

MITCHAM COMMON In 1868 a local committee formed to oppose recent enclosures on Mitcham Common. In 1877, the Commons Preservation Society & locals prevented the London-Brighton Railway from building across the Common, & defeated Croydon Local Board's plans for a sewage works there. The following year another committee protested against the Lord of Manor's gravel digging operations. In 1890, there

COUL FOR CATS Coulsdon Commons (Coulsdon Common, Riddlesdown, Farthing Down, Kenley Common & Hartley Down) saw enclosures by Edmund Byron, Lord of the Manor in the 1870s. Hartley Down was fenced off, and turf & gravel were extracted from Riddlesdown. Byron was opposed by local businessman William Hall. Legal action ended in Byron agreeing to sell the commons to the Corporation of London. In Feb 1883 they were dedicated as a Common.

During World War 1, locals opposed the use of Kenley Common for a Royal Flying Corps airbase: they were defeated.

PECKHAM RYE PARK Over 100 years there were protests against encroachments on common land in Peckham Rye Park, leading to its purchase in 1868 for a public park. Peckham Rye was a crucial local space for mass radical meetings, including meetings of strkiking gas workers in 1889, and rallies held to organise demos amd riots in the One Tree Hill struggle (see below).

PLUMSTEAD COMMON: "A Series of Wild and Violent Riots" Plumstead Common belonged to the Provost and Scholars of Queens College, Oxford. Freehold tenants had enjoyed rights of cattle-grazing, and collection of gravel, turf, loam etc for centuries. It was a wild and picturesque place, loved by locals, especially kids. Troops had been allowed to exercise here in the 19th Century, leading to "the present ruinous condition of the remoter half" (WT Vincent). In 1816 two plots of land were enclosed where Blendon Road and Bramblebury Road are now. In the 1850s an area between The Slade and Chestnut Rise was sold. There were "distant rumblings" in Parish meetings, but no more. Some small plots enclosed on the fringes of the Common were given to poor widows to keep them out of the workhouse, according to Vincent (more to cut expenses to the ratepayers than from generosity possibly). From 1859 however, the College aggressively pursued a policy of excluding freeholders, asserting they were practically the owners of the waste land. Various encroachments were made, reducing the Common by a third: in 1866 the whole of Bostall Heath and Shoulder of Mutton Green were enclosed.

This led to local outrage, meetings of residents of East Wickham, and the forming of a protest committee, led in March 1866 to the forcible removal of the fences around the Green, and also destruction of fences near the Central Schools around Heathfield and Bleakhill. In a legal challenge by Manor tenants to the College, the Master of the Rolls ruled the enclosures on the Common and Bostall Heath out of order.

"A party of women, armed with saws and hatchets" 'Illegal' encroachments continued though -often facing unofficial demolition by locals. The Plumstead Vestry even passed motions in favour of the demolitions! The main targets were the property of William Tongue, a rich local builder who had bought the land here and put fences up, & his crony, magistrate Edwin Hughes, Chairman of the Vestry (later Tory MP for Woolwich). Hughes was said to have "had the key to the Borough in his pocket", a very powerful man locally. He had bought land off Tongue to add to his garden. Tongue had already been the focus for trouble in 1866 over his enclosing ways. On a Saturday in May 1870, "a number of the lower class, who were resolved to test their rights" demolished fences and carried off the wood. "A party of women, armed with saws and hatchets, first commenced operations by sawing down a fence enclosing a meadow adjoining the residence of Mr Hughes..." Fences belonging to William Tongue were pulled down. There was talk

From 1871, the military from nearby barracks took over large sections for exercises and drilling, as Woolwich Common was too small and swampy: the squaddies soon trashed the place, stripping all the grass and bushes and brambles. Protests followed, but nothing changed.

In 1876, Queens College decided to lease the greater part of the common permanently to the army for extensions to the Woolwich Barracks/parade grounds. Local people, including many workers from Woolwich Dockyard, objected to the plans; notices appeared around the town in late June calling for a demonstration. The main organiser of the demo was John de Morgan, an Irish republican & agitator, who had been involved in struggles against enclosures in Wimbledon (in 1875) & Hackney. De Morgan seems to have been a charismatic (or self-publicising) and provocative figure, a freelance editor, orator & teacher, who had been driven out of Ireland for trying to start a Cork branch of the International Workingmens Association (the First International). He had long been a Secularist and Republican, but fell out with some radicals and other Secularists. He had founded a Commons Protection League.

"I Never saw a Scene So Disorderly and Lawless" On July 1st over 1000 people held meetings in the Arsenal Square and the Old Mill pub, marched up to the north side of the Common (around St Margaret's Grove) and peacefully tore down fences.

Again fences belonging to Edwin Hughes and William Tongue were destroyed the crowds now had added grudges against them. Both had recently been involved in crushing an 1876 strike by local carpenters and bricklayers over pay and piecework, making then doubly hated. Tongue had brought in scabs to break the strike and Hughes prosecuted strikers for leaving work (under the notorious Employers and Workman's Act.) A widely disliked Mr Jacobs, who leased a sandpit off the College, also had fences broken.

The following day (Sunday) a crowd returned to demolish the already rebuilt fences: a police attack led to a battle with stones thrown and fires started. Monday saw more rioting: according to a hostile witness there were 10,000 there on Monday and Tuesday, and "I never saw a scene so disorderly and lawless." The furze on Tongue's land was set on fire. While the cops brought it under control, enthusiastic meetings continued.

Although many rioters were costermongers, local coalheavers, labourers from the Woolwich Arsenal(700 men took the day off from one department here to hear a de Morgan speech), many more 'respectable' workmen were up there trashing the fences.

Hughes put pressure on, and John de Morgan and several other organisers were charged with incitement to riot (although de Morgan had not even been present after the July 1st events).

There was clear disagreement locally over methods of saving the Common: obviously the more respectable campaigners plumping for legal means LOCALS TEARING DOWN FENCES ON PLUMSTEAD COMMON, 1876. YEEHAW!