The ideas of common ownership are part of the history of the
working people of Britain. A number of people, including Gerrard Winstanley,
started to build houses, and dig and plant their crops on the common land at St
George's Hill in Surrey. The Diggers, or True Levellers as they described
themselves, were communists who wanted to abolish private property and unlike
any other radical grouping, they tried to put it in to practice. However, the
Digger communes lasted barely a year. They were broken by the violent hostility
of the landlords and the indifference of the poor. Ruffians were sent to the
commons to physically attack the Diggers, tearing down their houses and
trampling crops. The landlords took them to court and prosecuted them for
trespass. A smaller group of the original St.Georges Hill Diggers who moved to
close by Little Heath near Cobham received similar treatment, as did other
communes established in Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, Iver in
Buckinghamshire, Barnet in Hertfordshire, Enfield in then Middlesex, Bosworth
in Gloucestershire and a further one in Nottinghamshire. Indeed, nine of the
Wellingborough Diggers were arrested and imprisoned in Northampton jail and
although no charges could be proved against them the justice refused to release
them. The Diggers’ communist ideas were a powerful attraction to the poor. Winstanley
produced a utopian blueprint entitled Law of Freedom, a detailed plan for a
future society.
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