On this day, 1 April 1649, a farmer and writer called Gerrard Winstanley along with a small group of 30 to 40 men and women occupied St. George’s Hill, Watton, Surrey, England and began tilling the land collectively. Over the coming months, numerous local people would join them and for the movement which became known as the Diggers.
Winstanley was a Protestant who began to write pamphlets criticising the church which held that “god is in the heavens above the skies”. Instead he argued that god was “the spirit within you”. In a pamphlet published in January 1649 he wrote: “In the beginning of time God made the earth. Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another.”
The politics of the Diggers were a form of proto-communist anarchism, advocating direct action, common ownership and the dissolution of hierarchy.
More information, sources and map:
https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8025/the-diggers-occupy-st.-george’s-hill
Google map : https://tinyurl.com/262eo5lw
