Bradstock, Andrew

Bradstock, Andrew

Andrew Bradstock

13 August 2011Feature

More than 350 years ago, Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers called for the total reapportioning of land in the name of the poor, hungry and landless. Andrew Bradstock discusses the Diggers' contemporary relevance for activists today.

It is astonishing that the Diggers are still being talked about, and even inspiring action, at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It is true that they caused quite a stir when they first appeared in 1649, and that in Gerrard Winstanley they had someone able to put their position clearly and persuasively in print. But so short-lived were their communities, so total their defeat, and so quick to fade into obscurity their members (including Winstanley), that few who observed them at the time…