Monument in Believe Square, to Wigan born and bred Gerrard Winstanley & the 17th Century Diggers' (True Leveller) Movement, 1609-1676
Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the founders of the English group known as the True Levellers or Diggers. The group occupied formerly common land that had been privatised by enclosures and dug them over, pulling down hedges and filling in ditches, to plant crops. True Levellers was the name they used to describe themselves, whereas the term Diggers was coined by contemporaries. Early life Gerrard Winstanley was born on 19 October 1609, the son of Edward Winstanley, mercer, and was baptised in the parish of Wigan, then part of the West Derby hundred of Lancashire. 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. In 1630, Winstanley migrated to the City of London, where he became an apprentice to a Merchant Tailor. In 1638, he was admitted as a freeman of the Merchant Tailors' Company, a trade guild. In 1639, he married Susan King, the daughter of William King, a London surgeon. English Civil Wars The First English Civil War disrupted Winstanley’s business, and in 1643 he was made bankrupt. His father-in-law helped him to move to Cobham, Surrey, where he initially worked as a cowherd Winstanley published a pamphlet called The New Law of Righteousness. The basis of this work came from the Book of Acts, chapter two, verses 44 and 45: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need."
Size: 5472px × 3648px
Location: Wigan, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK, WN1 1BH
Photo credit: © Tony Smith / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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