Mark Gorman - Saving the People's Forest

Celebrating 150 years of plebian protest

Local historian Mark Gorman explores the importance of plebian protest in this celebratory film of the 150 year anniversary of the Saving of the People's Forest, or Epping Forest in East London. The growth of nineteenth-century London was unprecedented, swallowing up once remote villages, commons and open fields around the metropolitan fringe in largely uncontrolled housing development. In the mid-Victorian period widespread opposition to this unbridled growth coalesced into a movement that campaigned to preserve the London commons. The history of this campaign is usually presented as having been fought by members of the metropolitan upper middle class, who appointed themselves as spokespeople for all Londoners and played out their battles mainly in parliament and the law courts.

In his fascinating book, Saving the People's Forest: Open spaces, enclosure and popular protest in mid-Victorian London, Mark Gorman tells a different story — of the key role played by popular protest in the campaigns to preserve Epping Forest and other open spaces in and near London. He shows how throughout the nineteenth century such places were venues for both radical politics and popular leisure, helping to create a sense of public right of access, even ‘ownership’. At the same time, London’s suburban growth was partly a response to the rising aspirations of an artisan and lower middle class who increasingly wanted direct access to open space. This not only created the conditions for the mid-Victorian commons preservation movement, but also gave impetus to distinctive popular protest by proletarian Londoners.

You can buy Mark's book at www.herts.ac.uk/uhpress/books-content/saving-the-peoples-forest