Hackney Downs Riot In the 1870’s, there were several popular movements to prevent the private enclosure of previously public land; many had been rumbling on for decades as London became more built up and ancient rights came up against commercial imperatives. One such dispute

concerned Hackney Downs, which had always been used as common grazing land. However, the Metropolitan Board of Works who had had jurisdiction over the paths and rights of way, were under pressure to landscape it as a park and therefore wished that the Lord of the Manor,

William Tyson Amherst who ostensibly owned the common, would give it up without compensation. He responded by fencing in areas and digging up sand and gravel, which provoked the formation of the Commons Protection League, whose aims was to remove such enclosures. There were many

meetings throughout 1874 and 1875, attended by thousands of locals and things came to a head in December 1875, when a large crowd of 25,000 people gathered on the Downs to hear speeches about the illegality of the fences, and the proceeded to pull them up (though the posts were

particularly troublesome), gather them in a cone shape and burn them. The posts were tarred, something with Lord Tyson had demanded because he had thought this would put people off from removing them. Requests for incendiary materials were made from the crowd. However, despite a

large police presence, no one was arrested. The following year, the people, represented by land radical John De Morgan,, and Lord Tyson, agreed in the Court of Chancery to neither enclose or pull up enclosures, until the case between the Board of Works and the Lord of the Manor

was resolved. But in the end, the Board lost and had to buy out Lord Tyson in order to keep Hackney Downs open.1875
By Miriam Silverman layers of London