| | by admin | | posted on 4th June 2025 in The English Revolution | | views 102 | |
Gerrard Winstanley was a radical English reformer and early communist thinker, who led the Diggers and later embraced Quakerism, leaving a lasting legacy of justice, equality and peace.
Gerrard Winstanley was born in October 1609 in the market town of Wigan, Lancashire. His father was a prosperous mercer, which allowed Winstanley a relatively stable upbringing. He moved to London in the 1630s to pursue a trade in the cloth business, becoming a freeman of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. However, the economic instability caused by the English Civil War Period and poor trading conditions led to his financial ruin.
By the mid-1640s, Winstanley had relocated to Cobham in Surrey and taken up a modest life as a cowherd and common labourer. The experience of both relative comfort and later poverty instilled in him a profound understanding of social injustice. He began to interpret his Christian faith in light of his suffering and that of others, developing a theology rooted in justice, equity and the right of all people to share in the fruits of the earth.
In 1649, the year King Charles I was executed and England briefly became a republic, Winstanley and a small band of followers began cultivating common land on St George’s Hill, near Weybridge. This action was based on their belief that all land should be held in common, free from enclosure and private ownership. They became known as the Diggers — a name both practical and symbolic.
Winstanley argued that the original sin was the turning of the earth into private property, and that Christ had come to restore the Earth as a 'common treasury'. The Diggers’ community at St George’s Hill was intended to be a working model of a new society, based on shared labour, communal ownership, and peaceful cooperation. It was also a direct challenge to landlords, Parliament, and emerging capitalist forces.
Though small in number, the Diggers’ actions and writings—including The True Levellers Standard Advanced and A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England, had wide reach and deep moral force. They were harassed by local landowners and eventually evicted by force in early 1650. Similar communities attempted to form elsewhere, but none lasted long.
Winstanley was not only a man of action, but also a prolific writer. His texts blend mystical Christianity, radical egalitarianism, and practical political thought. He rejected violence, hierarchy, and coercion, insisting that true power came from within, from a divine light in all people. This belief later echoed in the principles of the Quaker movement.
He saw the state, the Church of England, and even the more radical Presbyterians and Independents as perpetuating inequality. His political vision went beyond mere reform. He called for the abolition of monarchy, tithes, wage labour, and the very institution of private property. His proposed “commonwealth” was not merely a republic, but a fully cooperative society without rich or poor.
In The Law of Freedom in a Platform, written in 1652 and addressed directly to Oliver Cromwell, Winstanley laid out a detailed vision for a new society based on common ownership, universal education, gender equality, and elected local councils. Though Cromwell ignored the work, it remains one of the most ambitious political blueprints of the 17th century.
By the early 1650s, with the Digger movement suppressed and political hope fading, Winstanley’s public activism diminished. However, his spiritual journey continued. He found resonance with the Quakers who rejected violence, titles, tithes, and outward sacraments in favour of inward experience and peaceable living.
Winstanley likely joined the Quakers sometime in the 1650s or early 1660s. This shift was not a retreat from radicalism, but a deepening of his belief that true change must begin within. Like many early Quakers, he endured persecution for his beliefs, including public ridicule and possible imprisonment. He took no part in the Restoration of the monarchy and lived quietly in Cobham, possibly serving as a parish churchwarden in later life.
His Quaker faith gave him a community and a spiritual home where his ideals of equality, integrity, and peace could be lived rather than only proclaimed. Though he ceased writing, his convictions remained.
Gerrard Winstanley’s legacy was largely overlooked until the 19th century, when labour historians and Christian socialists began to rediscover his writings. In the 20th century, he was adopted as a prophetic voice by anarchists, socialists, Greens, and peace activists. His vision of land held in common, peaceful cooperation, and spiritual equality has found renewed relevance in struggles for environmental justice, land rights, and radical democracy.
He has been commemorated with a statue in Wigan, academic studies, and theatrical performances. In 1975, filmmaker Kevin Brownlow created a feature film titled Winstanley, depicting his life and the Diggers’ commune, using historical detail and even Civil War re-enactors for authenticity. The Wigan Diggers Festival celebrates his legacy annually.
In a world still shaped by inequality, enclosure, and environmental harm, Winstanley’s voice continues to speak:
“Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease; or was it made to preserve all her children?”Gerrard Winstanley