Saving the People's Forest: Open Spaces, Enclosure and Popular Protest in Mid-Victorian London

The growth of 19th-century London was unprecedented, swallowing up villages, commons, and open fields around the metropolitan fringe in largely uncontrolled housing development. In the mid-Victorian period opposition to this unbridled growth coalesced into a movement that campaigned to preserve the London commons. The history of this campaign is usually presented as having been fought by members of the metropolitan upper middle class, who played out their battles mainly in parliament and th...