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Conservation, Class and Custom: Lifespace and Conflict in a Nineteenth-century Forest Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Brian Short
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Extract

Cannon… is busy now bringing fern from the moor to use as bedding, he has cut it about a mile off up the lane behind Belle Green. It is a rough road to bring it down. I think I will go up next time with the cart and help the children to rake it, it is such a nice crackly fern.

At the East Grinstead Petty Sessions in March 1868 Charles, sixth Earl De La Warr brought ten poor men forward charged with oak and beech underwood cutting and trespass. George Edwards the Reeve had discovered six men cutting and tying, another three with handbills but who were not actually cutting at the time, and Abraham Card ‘a woodbuyer, etc.’ loading the wood onto his wagon. Edwards had cautioned the men against cutting: ‘When I got to them I read a paragraph from Mr Hunt's letter [Hussey Hunt, De La Warr's steward, warning against litter cutting]. They laughed and went on cutting. I then gave them all into custody’. It appears that the men were handcuffed and led away. Daniel Heasman, one of the men once again, was convicted and originally imprisoned for 21 days, the other defendants were originally fined 1s. damages, 1s. penalty and costs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , October 1999 , pp. 127 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

Notes

1. Lane, M., Beatrix Potter's Letters (1989), p. 147.Google Scholar Letter 30th September 1909 from Potter, owner of land at Near Savvrey in the Lake District, to Millie Warne.

2. Short, B., The Ashdown Forest Dispute 1876–1882: Environmental Politics and Custom (Sussex Record Society, 1998), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

3. Eversley, Lord, Commons, Forests and Footpaths (1910).Google Scholar The subtitle is revealing, being ‘the Story of the Battle during the last Forty-five years for Public rights over the Commons, Forests and Footpaths of England and Wales’. The first edition, English Commons and Forests, had been published in 1894Google Scholar under the author's original name of G. J. Shaw-Lefevre. See also Killingray, D., ‘Rights, “Riot” and Ritual: The Knole Park Access Dispute, Sevenoaks, Kent, 1883–5’, Rural History 5 (1) 1994, 63–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. ‘A Fragment of the Great Forest’, The Spectator 15th February 1879, 207–208.Google Scholar

5. Cobbett, William, Rural Rides (Everyman edition based on J. P. Cobbett's 1853 edtn, repr. 1957), I, 66–67.Google Scholar

6. Ashdown Forest. Earl de La Warr v. Miles and Hale. Book of Documents II, 135 (University of Sussex Library) and hereafter Ashdown Forest. Two lithograph volumes were produced of the documents for the Case: Volume I covers the period 1297–1693 and Volume II, 1693–1878. The copy in the University of Sussex library was that used by Webster Q.C. The two volumes are virtually duplicated from the De La Warr side in the De La Warr papers at the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO DLW 466–8).

7. The Ashdown Forest Act 1974Google Scholar, ch.xxi.

8. In 1372 the ‘Free chase’ of Ashdown was granted by Edward III to John of Gaunt and the Duchy of Lancaster, hence the Forest was also referred to as ‘Lancaster Great Park’. At John's death in 1399 the Forest went to his third wife, Katherine Swynford, and on her death in 1403 it reverted to her son, Henry IV, thereby bringing it back into royal control.

9. Small, J. E., ‘A Review of Ashdown Forest and the Common Rights Thereon’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 126 (1988), 157Google Scholar; Irons, J., ‘Aspects of the Impact of Man on the Historical Ecology of Ashdown Forest, Sussex, before 1885’ University of Sussex D.Phil thesis, 1982, p. 382.Google Scholar

10. The monuments of the Sackville Chapel in Withyham Church commemorate various members of the family. For more information on the Sackvilles see Sackville-West, V., Knole and the Sackvilles (1923), pp. 111–220.Google Scholar

11. Merricks, L., ‘“Without Violence and by Controlling the Poorer Sort”: The Enclosure of Ashdown Forest 1640–1693’ Sussex Archaeological Collections, 132 (1994), 121.Google Scholar

12. Irons, ‘Aspects’, p. 59; Brandon, P. and Short, B., The South East from AD 1000 (1990), p. 231.Google Scholar

13. Irons, ‘Aspects’, p. 108–109.

14. Potts, A. S. and Browne, T. J., ‘The Climate of Sussex’ in Geography Editorial Committee, Sussex: Environment, Landscape and Society (Gloucester, 1983), p. 198.Google Scholar

15. Robinson, D. A. and Williams, R. B. G., ‘The Soils and Vegetation History of Sussex’ in Geography Editorial Committee, Sussex, pp. 109–126.Google Scholar

16. Turner, Edward, ‘Ashdown Forest’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 14 (1862), 35–64.Google Scholar Turner (1794–1872) was rector of Maresfield 1837–72. His tombstone is on the south side of Maresfield church, and a memorial window to him and his wife sits over the choir stalls on the north side of the church. See also Rev. Petley, J. L. Ward, Maresfield Old and New (1896, reprinted Worthing 1991), 60.Google Scholar

17. , ‘Aspects’, pp. 101–109, 134–135; ESRO ACC 3715/1–2.

18. Irons, ‘Aspects’, p. 104; ESRO ACC 3715/1, 3–4; Webb, N., Heathlands (1986), p. 167.Google Scholar In the newspaper item ‘Ashdown Forest and Earl De La Warr’ (The Echo 9th September 1878, 1) the high price of straw is alluded to – and at a time of agricultural depression with arable fields being put down to grass throughout the Weald, the high price of straw locally would indeed be a result; Bourne, G., Change in the Village (1912, reprint 1966), p. 144.Google Scholar

19. Irons, ‘Aspects’, pp. 110–116, 367; Beswick, Molly, Brickmaking in Sussex: A History and Gazetteer (Midhurst, 1993).Google Scholar Among the families noted and which appear in Raper's evidence, are those of Edmund, Jarrett and John Smith at Horney Common, William Turner at Nutley, and the Divalls at Hartfield. A reminder of turf cutting is in the older name of Clockhouse Lane, Nutley which was Turfstack Lane. There is a Turfstack Cottage there (Penn, R., Portrait of Ashdown Forest (1984), 134)Google Scholar; Irons, ‘Aspects’, pp. 292–299.

20. Small, ‘A Review’, p. 157; Hocktide was celebrated on the second Monday and Tuesday after Easter, the Feast of St John the Baptist is 24th June.

21. Irons, ‘Aspects’, p.74; Parsons, Bob, ‘Status, Occupations and Landholding: The Emergence of an Independent Peasantry in the High Weald of East Sussex in the Late Thirteenth Century. The Evidence of Ashdown Forest and its Region’, unpublished MA Dissertation, University of Leicester, 1996.Google Scholar

22. Brandon, P., ‘Medieval Clearances in the East Sussex Weald’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 48 (1969), 135–153CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brandon and Short, The South East, pp. 72–74.

23. Irons, ‘Aspects’, pp. 100–101.

24. Small, ‘A Review’, pp. 162–163.

25. Daniel-Tyssen, J. R., ‘The Parliamentary Surveys of Sussex’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 23 (1871), 242–271, 294–313Google Scholar; and 24 (1872), 190–218.

26. Cited in Merricks, ‘Without Violence’, pp. 118–119; See also Merricks, L., ‘Forest and Waste in Seventeenth-Century England: The Enclosure of Ashdown Forest, 1600–1700’, unpublished D.Phil thesis, University of Sussex, 1989.Google Scholar

27. ESRO ACC 3715/2, evidence of Henry Heasman and John Wheatley; Irons, ‘Aspects’, 91–94; Turner, ‘Ashdown Forest’, 35–64.

28. ESRO ACC 3715/1 evidence of Benjamin Bridger; 3715/3, evidence of William Hobbs.

29. See the full account at the head of this paper, taken from Short, Ashdown Forest Dispute, pp. 27–8.

30. Ashdown Forest II, 255–69; ESRO ADA 100 (Press cutting 30th March 1868); the Duddleswell Manor Court Books record that City Bannister took on the tenancy from his father Edward. City died in late 1872, leaving the property to his widow Ann Maria by his will of 21st February 1867 (ESRO ADA 88, 488; 89, 32, 449).

31. Ashdown Forest II, 300.

32. Daily Echo, 9th September 1878 (ESRO AMS 4097). For the other litigation upon which the seventh Earl had embarked see: Cocks, R., ‘The Great Ashdown Forest Case’, in Watkin, T. G. (ed.), The Legal Record and Historical Reality (1989), 175–197Google Scholar, being part of the proceedings of the Eighth British Legal History Conference, Cardiff.

33. Ashdown Forest II, 322–9.

34. Ashdown Forest II, 331–5.

35. Ashdown Forest I, 340.

36. Irons, ‘Aspects’, pp. 62–66; Small, ‘A Review’, p. 164; the tithe file for Maresfield indicates that the presence of the many small occupiers led to confusion and disagreement in 1840 at the time of tithe commutation in Maresfield (PRO IR 18/10410).

37. Ashdown Forest II, 350.

38. ESRO AMS 3914–9 (Jackson and Elton, Case for De La Warr), AMS 3920–4 (Williams and Harcourt, Case for the defendants) from the shorthand notes taken at the Trial.

39. ESRO AMS 3859. The trial was held on 18th-20th February, 2nd-5th March and 9th-11th March 1880. The order from V. C. Bacon lists the witnesses and evidence supplied; see also Eversley, Commons, p. 116; for an excellent description of the legal aspects of the Case, including biographic material on the Counsel involved, see Cocks, , ‘The Great’. The report of the case can be read in The Law Journal Reports 8th August 1880, XLIX New series, 476–490.Google Scholar

40. Cocks, , ‘The Great’, p. 192Google Scholar; ESRO AMS 3977. See the Solicitor's Journal and Reporter 26th March 1881, 391–392Google Scholar (ESRO AMS 3978).

41. A copy of the subsequent enclosure award (1887) is at ESRO QDD/6/E 15; a copy of an early draft of an agreement to compromise in Hale and others v. De La Warr dated 9th December 1881 is to be found in the De La Warr papers (ESRO DLW 459–60).

42. Commons Land Regulation (Ashdown Forest) Provisional Order Confirmation Act 1885 (48–49 Vict.c.56); Eversley, , Commons Appendix II, 333–334Google Scholar; ESRO QDD/6/E. See Irons, , ‘Aspects’, pp. 60–61.Google Scholar

43. The Board continues to the present day from its headquarters at the Ashdown Forest Centre, Wych Cross, near Forest Row.

44. Daily Echo, 9th September 1878Google Scholar (ESRO AMS 4097).

45. Daily News, 29th August 1878Google Scholar; reprinted in the East Sussex Advertiser, 3rd September 1878.Google Scholar It is relevant to note however, that De La Warr's own personal views on this case are not discernible from the deposited material, and that the available sources are therefore inevitably biased against him.

46. ESRO AMS 3780–4140 Legal papers on the Ashdown Forest Case (1876–1882). There is some duplication of these in the De La Warr papers deposited at the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO DLW 454–99) and duplication of the background material in the De La Warr vs. Wilson papers (PRO LRRO 67/1–3). Other documentation as used during the case by R. E. Webster (later Lord Alverstone) passed to the Conservators of Ashdown Forest and is now deposited in the University of Sussex library. Other papers include those of the Hewletts, researchers into land disputes and titles in the case for Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson v. De la Warr (PRO LRRO 67/1–3).

47. Short, , Ashdown Forest Dispute, pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

48. The evidence gathered by Raper has been available as an unpublished transcription originally finished in 1976 by Mrs V. B. Lamb, the Honorary Librarian to the Sussex Archaeological Society from 1970 to 1976. The faded typescript, difficult to read in places and containing some inaccuracies, partly due to the difficulties of Raper's handwritten material, can be seen in the Library of the Sussex Archaeological Society, Barbican House, Lewes, as Accession No. 20412. The Notebook volumes were later deposited with the East Sussex Record Office and are now listed as ESRO ACC 3715/1–6.

49. See ‘Ashdown Forest’, Sussex Notes and Queries V (1934—1935), 146–147. The depositions by James Baker, Caesar Gurr and John Brooker were singled out for comment in this short paper.

50. Willard, B., The Forest: Ashdown in Sussex (Poundgate, 1989), 49.Google Scholar

51. ESRO AMS 3904—5. For a list of the deponents called to give evidence at the High court, see Short, , Ashdown Forest Dispute, pp. 267–268.Google Scholar

52. Humphries, J., ‘Enclosures, Common Rights and Women: The Proletarianisation of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of Economic History, 1 (1990), 17–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Ashdown Forest II, 140a.

54. ESRO ACC 3715/3, Evidence of Samuel Heasman, 68, of Pages Gill, Forest Row; letter Hunt to George Wheatley is in ESRO ADA 99 Rental and Customal of the Manor of Duddleswell (envelope enclosed within the volume of miscellaneous letters re. enclosures and Court Barons of the Manor).

55. PRO LRRO 67/1 pp. 48–9.

56. ESRO ACC 3715/1. Evidence of George Tester.

57. ESRO ACC 3715/3, Evidence of William Falconer and John Minns; Patmore, Coventry, How I Managed and Improved My EstateGoogle Scholar, reprinted from the St. James's Gazette, 1886, 11–12.Google Scholar I am grateful to John Bleach for drawing my attention to this reference. Patmore (1823–96) was best known for his poetry, and purchased Oldlands in 1866. As a Roman Catholic convert, he opened a private Catholic chapel there, but moved away in 1874 and later settled in Hastings (Penn, Portrait, pp. 48, 136). Raper appears to have interviewed him, presumably in Hastings (his name appears in the list of those answering questions in Notebook 1), but no evidence seems to have been used.

58. Patmore, , How I Managed, p. 7.Google Scholar

59. ESRO ACC 3715/3, Evidence of John Minns.

60. Patmore, , How I Managed, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar For similar comments on the lack of wealden Christianity, see Heath, Richard, The English Peasant: Studies Historical, Local and Biographical (1893, repr Wakefield 1978), p. 186.Google Scholar

61. ESRO ADA 100 (Press cutting of 30th March 1868).

62. Brookes Guide and Directory for Uckfield and District (1888), 105.Google Scholar

63. ‘CMM’, ‘The Romany Grave’, Ashdown Forest News (Spring 1987), 17Google Scholar; ESRO XA 53/87, 89; ESRO PAR 420/1/2/2: ESRO AMS 4098 North Sussex Gazette and East General Advertiser 18th January 1879, 1.Google Scholar

64. Walter, H., ‘Some Notable Happenings through the Years from 1804 to the Present Time on Ashdown Forest from Old Stories Heard’ (unpublished typescript, 1950), 2.Google Scholar For more material on the Wright family see also ESRO AMS 5762 ‘Reminiscences of Harry John Peckham (1841–1922) Vicar of Nutley 1882–1913’.

65. Wolff, H., Sussex Industries (Lewes, 1883), pp. 151–153.Google Scholar

66. Short, B., ‘The Decline of Living-in Servants in the Transition to Capitalist Farming: A Critique of the Sussex evidence’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 122 (1984), 147–164.Google Scholar

67. As such, the Ashdown Forest working communities exemplified the economic relationships explored by Reed, M., ‘“Gnawing it Out”: A New Look at Economic Relations in Nineteenth-Century Rural England’, Rural History 1: 1 (1990), 83–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar And see also Reed, M., ‘Class and Conflict in Rural England: Some Reflections on a Debate”, in Reed, M., and Wells, R. (eds), Class, Conflict and Protest in the English Countryside, 1700–1880 (1990), pp. 1–28Google Scholar; Rev. Littleton's evidence is in British Parliamentary Papers 1888–1894 (Irish University Press 20, Agriculture, 339–343).Google Scholar

68. ESRO XA 53/87 Maresfield 1871 census; Abbs, B., ‘A Maresfield Entrepreneur: William Wood and Woodlands nurseries’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 132 (1994), 161–172Google Scholar; Walter, H. (‘Master Carpenter’), ‘Nutley Village as I knew it seventy years ago’ (unpub. typescript, 1950).Google Scholar

69. Prince, C. L., Observations upon the Topography and Climate of Crowborough Hill, Sussex (1898), 302–303Google Scholar; ESRO XA 53/87 Maresfield 1871 census; XA2/7 Hartfield 1861 census.

70. ESRO AMS 3916, 27; List of the Registered Electors for East Sussex 1833 (ESRO AMS 4570).

71. Neeson, J. M., Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700–1820 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 13–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and see pp. 178–9 for examples of more pejorative, value-laden language used against commoners; Wells, R., ‘Social Protest, Class, Conflict and Consciousness, in the English countryside 1700–1880’Google Scholar in Reed, and Wells, , Class, p. 173.Google Scholar No evidence beyond 1864 is however given.

72. ESRO Quarter Sessions 18th January 1828; Allen, S., ‘Poaching in East Sussex 1830–1880’, unpub. MA Dissertation, University of Sussex, 1979, 51–62.Google Scholar

73. ‘Narrative of the circumstances of the arrest of the Rev Robert Bingham, curate of Maresfield, 7th Feb 1811’ (ESRO AMS 6403). Bingham had made himself unpopular on Ashdown for his zeal in checking alehouses, and had been instrumental in obtaining refusal of a licence for the Hare and Hounds ‘on a very wild part of Ashdown Forest’, as well as acting to throw out illegal enclosures. He was however accused of arson with intent to defraud by setting fire to his own house which burned to the ground in January 1811. Lord Sheffield intervened on Bingham's behalf and he was acquitted. I am grateful to Christopher Whittick (East Sussex Record Office) for drawing my attention to this reference.

74. ESRO Gage MSS, Maresfield Manorial Court Books (Liber 14) SAS/G/ACC/903, 89 (17th September 1824). An almost identical entry related to a similar action against William Chart who had enclosed 8 rods in Hartfield (ibid., 136 for 18th September 1826).

75. Ashdown Forest II, 126. Shelley received the reply that four men had been pinpointed for legal action and would be selected as examples to the neighbourhood so no action on Shelley's part was required immediately. A list of the action taken against encroachments was drawn up in June 1827, including the line ‘Thomas Brooker sent Horsham [gaol] May 1827’ (Ashdown Forest II, 127–33). Brooker had been in trouble before: at a Duddleswell Court Baron on 3rd Nov 1817 George Gates and Thomas Brooker (both of East Grinstead) and described as ‘yeoman’, ‘hath severally lately encroached upon the waste of this Manor by cutting the Heath Litter Grass and other Herbage growing on the Waste of this manor (without having or claiming any right or title thereto) and contrary to the known usage rights & customs of this manor’. They were amerced 20s. each and warning of prosecution was issued to anyone else doing likewise. The same court also reinforced the opinion that sheep were not commonable nor horses – except mill horses – or non-commoners’ cattle, and as such they would be swept and impounded (Ashdown Forest II, 103–4).

76. ESRO Conservators of Ashdown Forest MS 6 (1878).

77. Sussex Express, 24th November 1883.Google Scholar

78. Christian, G., Ashdown Forest (Lewes, 1967), p. 3.Google Scholar

79. Thompson, E. P., Customs in Common (1991), pp. 4, 151.Google Scholar

80. ESRO AMS 4098 North Sussex Gazette and East Grinstead General Advertiser, 18th January 1879, 1.Google Scholar The withdrawal of the involved magistrates who were tenants of the Manor was also reported in the 30th March 1868 East Grinstead Petty Sessions case involving ten underwood cutters noted above, when Bernard Hale and Major Moor withdrew, but there was no reported statement of defiance by these magistrates against Lord De La Warr on that earlier occasion (ESRO ADA 100).

81. For analogous struggles in the context of South East Asia, see Scott, James C.Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale, 1986).Google Scholar The issue of woodland resources was also the touchstone for Marx's interest in the defence of the material interests of the masses and inspired him to study political economy. See ‘Debates of the Law on Thefts of Wood’ (Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly) reprinted in: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels Collected Works Vol. 1: Karl Marx 1835–43 (1975), 224–263Google Scholar and fn, p. 744.

82. I am again grateful to Christopher Whittick for drawing my attention to the Archive of the Ridley family of Horney Common (ESRO ACC 6815) containing minutes and correspondence of the Ashdown Forest Protection Association from 1886 to 1890 and various other letters, lists etc. Ongoing abuses of rights of common within Duddleswell Manor are detailed in ESRO ADA 98, Duddleswell Rental and Custumal covering the years c. 1883 to 1915.