Saving the People's Forest

In July 1871 thousands of Londoners gathered on the southern edge of Epping Forest to take part in a protest demonstration. A campaign was beginning – one that renowned ecologist Oliver Rackham has dubbed “the origin of the modern British environmental movement.”
The struggle to preserve Epping Forest and other commons from unchecked housing development across London had its watershed moment that day. The demonstration was the turning point for a popular struggle which contributed to a change in the law - the 1878 Epping Forest Act – a key declaration of the public’s right to use open spaces for leisure.
This story, set within the wider narrative of campaigns to preserve the London commons, is told in this talk by east London historian Mark Gorman. The focus here is not on the metropolitan upper middle-class campaigners, but instead on the grass roots movement whose popular protests would steer the campaign towards its successful conclusion. This campaign and other metropolitan contests contributed significantly to the birth of what has become the modern-day “right to roam”.

Host or Publisher London Metropolitan Archives