Anniversary of the death of Gerrard Winstanley & the need to keep remembering history
Thanks to English Radical History and author Michael Rosen for reminding that today is the anniversary of the death of the Digger Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1676)
His Wiki entry is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_Winstanley
Winstanley is perhaps best known for being part of a group that set up a settlement at St George’s Hill in Surrey in April 1649 as part of the radical Diggers movement- essentially claiming the land for the people. Today the area is a prosperous part of the Home Counties.
Winstanley and the Diggers have been celebrated in radical history and by radical historians. Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down remains in print and available as an e-book (2019/2020, Penguin). Various editions of Winstanley’s own writings should also be available although they could also do with being republished for a new audience.
Yet while Winstanley and the history of the Diggers is probably well known to generations on the left, inspiring the Billy Bragg song for example, it cant be assumed that this historical knowledge simply continues on. Often what is known in one decade has become obscured several decades later.
The work of radical historians in continuing not just to draw attention to the traditions and the histories of the left but also to research them further and understand what they mean in the context of 2020 remains essential.
Gerrard Winstanley, political and religious reformer, died #OnThisDay 1676. Regarding the earth ‘a common treasury’, Winstanley was the leader of the agrarian Civil War-era Diggers movement that established communities across England to cultivate waste and common land.
@englishradical
Leave a Reply