THE STOLEN COMMONS
The Disappearance of the English Playgrounds and
Commons—Fawcett’s first Protest—The Annual Enclosure Bill
stopped by his energetic Action.
[Sidenote: A Countryman to the Rescue.]
Fawcett used to say that there was no part of his public work on which
he looked with so much unalloyed satisfaction as on his work for the
commons. Perhaps a few words show what a complicated question he had to
deal with, and how great the need was for the strong and courageous
action which he took in this matter.
He would see the urgency as only those could see it whose knowledge of
country life and country ways was drawn from the farming and labouring
classes. He kept true to his early lessons and did not allow his path to
be deviated by the many side issues in which these questions were
involved.
[Sidenote: Common Lands.]
From the earliest times there had been in every parish in England a
large tract of land held in common. Part of it was cultivated jointly by
the villagers and part of it was kept as open common land, and all
parishioners had the right to feed their beasts there, and to cut wood
or furze, and similar privileges.
This gave much independence to the simpler folk and added to their
resources and comforts, but it also made it impossible to farm the
common lands by more modern and more productive methods. So there arose
a movement for enclosing these lands and dividing them up among the
different village inhabitants, to become their own individual property.
As regards the lands farmed jointly, this course had many advantages
provided that the distribution was made fairly. But when it came to the
commons proper, the benefit was much more doubtful even from a
wealth-giving point of view. As to the non-economic value of a
common—its value as an open place for recreation and health-giving—this
only began to be realised as the commons became few.
Fawcett, in his first professional lectures (1864), mentions the evils
arising from enclosures.
[Sidenote: No room for the Cow and the Pig.]
‘He declared, from his own knowledge of the agricultural labourer, that
cottagers could no longer keep a cow, a pig, or poultry; that the
village greens had become extinct, and that the turnpike road was too
often the only playground for the village children.
‘He doubted whether the enclosure of commons, involving the breaking up
of pastures, had, in point of fact, permanently increased the wealth of
the country; but the wealth in any case was dearly purchased if
purchased by a diminution of the labourers’ comforts. The compensation
paid to the poor commoner had generally been spent by the first
receiver, whilst his descendants were permanently deprived of many of
the little advantages which might have helped to eke out their scanty
resources.’
The procedure whereby a common was enclosed was one that dealt very
hardly on the poorer folk, and made it very difficult, if not
impossible, for them to make their objections felt. The matter went
before the Enclosure Commissioners, and they every year presented a Bill
to Parliament recommending such enclosures as they had at that time
approved. The Bill would be passed almost without investigation, as part
of the routine work of Parliament.
Fawcett appreciated from a child the blessings of open free tracts for
fresh air and fun. He watched with distress and indignation the rights
of the people to their woods and open spaces being put aside, their
commons seized and fenced off, their forests appropriated and their
venerable trees cut down—and all this without protest, nay by the
consent of a Government which undertook to be the guardian of the
people’s interests. Their historic right in Epping Forest, Hampstead
Heath, and many other places were ignored in mean schemes for
appropriating the land and raising paltry sums by selling it as farm or
building land, or by marketing the timber. Fawcett might have chanted in
his sonorous voice the following apt and classic verse:
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
[Sidenote: Battle of Wisley Common.]
The annual enclosure Bill, introduced in 1869, submitted over six
thousand acres for enclosure, of which only three acres were to be
reserved for the public. In this area was included the beautiful common
of Wisley. It chanced that a resident near Wisley, who was a member of
Parliament, strongly objected to enclosures, and to this one in
particular, and he drew the attention of the House to the case. The
Minister in charge of the Bill agreed to withdraw Wisley and refer it to
a select committee, but said, at the same time, that it would be
obviously unfair to stop unopposed enclosures, and he proposed to
proceed with the rest of the Bill.
Fawcett, who joined in the debate, was made a member of this committee,
but his interest and energy went further. The Wisley case had fixed his
attention on the nature of the Bill itself, and he saw that there was
every reason to suppose that similar but unnoticed abuses were
occurring. The Bill had almost reached its final stage in the House of
Commons, but Fawcett was not to be stopped. He gave notice that ‘upon
the third reading he should move for a recommittal of the Bill in order
that a better provision might be made for allotments.’ This motion
created a great outcry. Why this interference? Parliament had been
getting along most harmoniously with the Enclosure Commission. Why
change this comfortable order of things and create delay and
inconvenience to those interested in making enclosures? Fawcett had a
hearty contempt for this comfort and convenience at the expense of the
poor. He continued his efforts to stop the passage of the Bill.
[Sidenote: Outwitting the Whips.]
The Government Whips, whose business it is to get business done, tried
to evade Fawcett’s opposition by arranging for the Bill to be discussed
at awkward times. They arranged for it to come on half an hour after
midnight, after the main business of the sitting was finished. Night
after night it would be put off on one excuse or another, and Fawcett
and the small band of friends who supported him would wait in vain. None
the less, they took turns and tried to be always on guard, for they knew
that their absence would be the signal for hurrying the Bill through.
Fawcett used to tell this story with glee: one night, as he had a very
bad cold, he sent a message to the Whips asking to have the motion
postponed again as had been so frequently done before. He had no answer,
but trusting that his request would be granted, he went home to bed. A
friend who dropped in to see him suggested that it would be unwise to
relax guard even for the night. Fawcett thereupon hurled on his clothes
and arrived to find the House about to pass the obnoxious Bill.
The wily Whip started ‘like a guilty thing surprised,’ and admitted
good-naturedly the failure of his tactics, and gave a formal undertaking
to defer the Bill then and to arrange for it to be brought on later at a
reasonable hour. Then, at last, Fawcett moved his resolution, dwelt upon
the injustice to the labourer, of the absurdly small reservations for
public allotments, protested at the attitude of the speakers for the
Government, who shirked all responsibility beyond confirming the action
of the commissioners. On his motion a committee was appointed to
consider the working of the present system, and the expediency of better
provision for recreation and allotment grounds.
[Sidenote: Fawcett opposes the traditional.]
In committee Fawcett opposed the existing system. The Enclosure
Commissioners and their supporters were content with the doctrine, that
‘the final cause of an enclosure commission is naturally to enclose,’
and considered it advantageous to get rid of common rights which
obstructed a more profitable employment of the land. Surely, they
claimed, it is a hardship to prevent the owners of any piece of property
from distributing their various rights on terms upon which they all
agree. Fawcett argued that the agreement was illusory. Country gentlemen
and farmers had looked after themselves, but the cottager had been put
off with some trifle, spent as soon as received.
[Sidenote: Withypool Parish Clerk.]
Fawcett was particularly delighted with the evidence given by Mr. J.
Reed, parish clerk of Withypool. When asked how far people would have to
go for an open space, the witness replied, ‘They could not find one for
miles except they did go on the common.’ ‘Is there no common within
reach of an ordinary walk?’ ‘No, he would not want any more recreation
by the time he came to any other common. The people say they will be as
badly off as in a town.’ ‘Are there no fields where they can walk?’
‘Yes, they can trespass, if they like that.’
The committee’s report, after vigorous discussion, accepted the chief
principles advocated by Fawcett; ‘Parliamentary scrutiny was to become
real and searching.’ Bills should be more carefully prepared in future.
It was even admitted to be questionable whether enclosures were always
beneficial.
Thus was a first great battle won for the safety of the commons. Others
had felt the wrong as well as Fawcett, and supported him loyally, but it
was his bulldog tenacity and his doing the disagreeable thing that
finally throttled the Annual Enclosures Bill and stopped the mechanical
process by which so many harmful enclosures were made.
[Sidenote: Sir Robert Hunter.]
Fawcett made a notable speech against this Bill. The late Sir Robert
Hunter, who saw much of Fawcett at this time, says: ‘Mr. Fawcett’s
memory was very remarkable, apart from the recognition of voices. I
remember an instance of this which struck me very much. He was making a
stand against the enclosure of rural commons; the question arose whether
certain enclosures which had been commenced should be carried out or
abandoned. There were some twenty or thirty cases, and Mr. Fawcett in a
speech to the House of Commons gave figured details of each case, the
whole area of each common, the extent of the allotments for fields, for
gardens and a host of other particulars.
[Sidenote: The Style for the House.]
But all his friends were not so appreciative. Lord Courtney tells how
Fawcett on one occasion took a Liverpool man of little humour down to
Cambridge for the Christmas dinner. In return for his hospitality the
guest rewarded Fawcett by fearless and supercilious criticism of his
method of speaking, saying, ‘Fawcett, you haven’t got the style for the
House of Commons!’ Fawcett accepted the criticism in good part and his
friend undertook to show how to speak, rising to his feet and
gesticulating dramatically and making himself greatly absurd. Fawcett,
after a little good-natured listening, excused himself on the plea of an
engagement, saying, ‘Thanks ever so much. Edward,’ indicating his guide,
who was present, ‘is a first-rate reporter, and will tell me the rest of
your speech when I return.’ With which he flung gaily out of the room,
leaving his instructor agape.
Perhaps he had fled to go skating. His enthusiasm for this sport was
unquenchable. A Cambridge friend of those days writes:
‘Fawcett insisted that skating was best on the first day of a thaw. He
would come to my room, calling in his cheerful, loud voice, “Hullo, are
you going skating?” More than once I argued with him without avail that
it was dangerous to skate when the ice was thinning. He was deaf to all
reason, and would haul me out on the river, where he would skate ankle
deep in water. Well I remember my alarm once when I saw him—he was
heading full tilt towards a big hole. I shouted to him to steer clear of
it, myself horrified at his imminent danger. When he barely escaped the
opening he called out cheerily. “Oh, don’t worry, it will be all right!”
Shod with his skates he was absolutely without fear.’