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Winstanley

Gerrard Winstanley (1609 - September 10, 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer and political activist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. more...

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Winstanley was aligned with the group known as the True Levellers for their beliefs, based upon Christian communism, and as the Diggers for their actions because they took over public lands and dug them over to plant crops.

Brief biography

Not a great deal is known about Gerrard Winstanley's early life. We do know that he was baptised in 1809 in Wigan, then part of the West Derby (hundred) of Lancashire, and that he was the son of an Edward Winstanley, mercer. His mother's identity remains unknown and he could have been born anywhere in the Parish of Wigan . The parish of Wigan contained the townships of Abram, Aspull, Billinge-and-Winstanley, Dalton, Haigh, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Orrell, Pemberton, and Upholland, as well as Wigan itself .

He moved in 1630 to London, where he became an apprentice and ultimately, in 1638, a freeman of the Merchant tailors' Company or guild. The English Civil Wars, however, disrupted his business, and in 1643 he was made bankrupt. He had married Susan King, the daughter of London surgeon William King, in 1639 and William King helped Winstanley move to Cobham in Surrey, where he initially worked as a cowherd .

English Civil Wars

There were many factions at work during the period of the three related English civil wars. They included the Royalists, who supported King Charles I; the Parliamentary forces, called "Roundheads," who later emerged under the name of the New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell; the Fifth Monarchy Men, who believed in the establishment of a heavenly theocracy on earth to be led by a returning Jesus as king of kings and lord of lords; the Agitators for political egalitarian reform of government, who were branded "Levellers" by their foes and who were led by Freeborn John Lilburne; and the Christian communists, who called themselves the True Levellers for their beliefs but who were branded "Diggers" because of their actions. The latter were led by Gerrard Winstanley. Whereas Lilburne sought to level the laws and maintain the right to the ownership of real property, Winstanley sought to level the ownership of real property itself, which is why Winstanley's followers called themselves "True Levellers".

The New Law of Righteousness

Gerrard Winstanley published a tract called The New Law of Righteousness, which advocated a form of Christian communism. The basis of this communistic belief came from the Book of Acts, chapter two, verses 44 and 45, which speaks of common property. Winstanley argued that "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."