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The 'Battle of Ditton' takes hold of Thames Ditton, as local residents fight against plans to develop the historic High Street there.
The development of the Esher Bypass causes a major dispute, in which local residents take significant action to try and prevent the loss of Common Land.
'The Land is Ours' campaigners set up camp on St George's Hill in Weybridge, on the 350th anniversary of the Diggers' occupation of the site. They were protesting about the restricted access to the land there and drew on the imagery and words of their predecessors.
Miles Halliwell playing Gerrard Winstanley in the 1975 film ‘Winstanley’.
Date: April 1649
Leader: Gerrard Winstanley, a failed tradesman-turned-labourer from Cobham.
Roots: Winstanley claimed that the ‘Norman Yoke’ – the self-interested rule of the monarchy since the 1066 Norman Conquest – had given a select few vast powers to oppress the population. Then, when the English Civil War had raged between Parliament and the King from 1642, Surrey endured heavy taxation by Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentary forces on the promise they would reap the rewards later on. But when the Parliamentarians won and Charles I was executed in 1649, Cromwell’s assurance came to nothing. The Diggers finally formed to take action.
Words: In ‘The True Levellers Standard Advanced’, Gerrard Winstanley stated his Digger ideals. He believed that social hierarchies are wrong, and that all men are created equal with the same rights to use common land.
Deeds: A radical group of labourers occupied and dug the common land of St George’s Hill, Weybridge, in April 1649. They set up a commune there where everyone cooperated & lived equally.
The Diggers were eventually driven out by local authorities. They are now remembered across the globe in popular culture and are widely considered the proponents of the earliest form of Communism.
Find out more about the Diggers’ story in Elmbridge Museum’s Diggers Project.
Find out how you'd have fared in mid-17th century Elmbridge in our quiz!
Banner from the East and West Molesey Women’s Cooperative Guild, an organisation descended, in part, from the Women’s Freedom League.
Date: 1907
Leader: Charlotte Despard of Esher. Despard was supported by the Duchess of Albany who lived close by at Claremont.
Roots: The Women’s Freedom League (WFL) started with a group of Suffragettes who had grown resentful of the WSPU’s violent methods. They sat half-way between the peaceful Suffragists and the militant Suffragettes.
Words: This group widely advocated direct disruptive actions in their various public speaking and debates and through their publication, ‘The Vote’. But they did not condone violence or attacks on property.
Deeds: In 1909, around 10,000 women boycotted the National Insurance tax on servant wages, with some facing prison sentences as a result.
In 1911, members of the WFL boycotted the census in an attempt to cause major disruption. They argued that women who couldn’t vote for the government had no obligation to participate in its census. Some women hid so they were not recorded in the census and some moved about so they were recorded in a number of locations – this is part of the reason why local Suffragettes are so hard to trace!
Charlotte Despard herself was arrested and imprisoned frequently, and admired by many Suffragettes. As a result, the WFL eventually had 64 branches.
During the First World War Years, when the Women’s Suffrage Movement paused its campaign Charlotte Despard turned her attention to supporting the Pacifist Movement (unlike many Suffragettes who were in favour of men signing up). When the vote was granted to some women in 1918, Despard stood as a Labour candidate in Battersea North, but did not win a seat in Parliament (the first and only woman to do so that year was Constance Markiewicz of Sinn Fein).
Alice Ruffle was dismissed as manageress of Frisby’s shoe shop in Weybridge at the end of the First World War. She set up Ruffle’s shoe shop directly opposite in opposition, and kept these boots behind the front desk for good luck. Her story is an example of how women stepped into new roles during and after the war – one of the most prominent reasons for then being granted the vote.
Discover more about Alice in our High Street Heritage Trail
Photograph from a local newspaper reporting on the ‘Battle of Ditton’.
Date: 1966
Leader: Thames Ditton Residents’ Association
Roots: The local council’s plans to redevelop Thames Ditton’s High Street caused outrage amongst local residents, who rallied behind their local Resident’s Association to protest.
Words: The powerful language used to describe the non-violent spat in local and national newspapers (left) makes it particularly notable. In the press and local area the conflict became widely known as the ‘Battle of Ditton’, with numerous debates and angry meetings held over several months while the battle raged on.
Deeds: Esher Urban District Council was flooded with 300 letters from angry Thames Ditton residents. 4,500 people signed a petition against the development and activists set up a ‘battle’ base at a home in Thames Ditton.
Cartoon from the Surrey Comet criticizing plans for the new Esher Bypass, 1974.
Date: 1974
Leader: Local residents, supported by the local press
Roots: The Esher Bypass had been in its planning stages prior to the Second World War, but was put on hold. The opening of Britain’s first motorway in 1958 marked the start of a huge programme for similar roads across the entire country, and by the 1970s plans for this huge road (part of the A3) were back on track.
Words: There was major discontent at the loss of Common land and woodland. To the left are a series of cartoons published in the Surrey Comet in 1974, mocking the Ministry of Transport and criticizing the plans for the Esher Bypass. Popular since the 1700s, cartoons often represent protesting voices through satire.
Deeds: After polite opposition through official channels failed, action was taken to oppose the construction by residents who regularly removed site markers on Esher Common, and making attacks on site equipment by draining the diggers’ fuel tanks or filling them with sand and sugar.
In 1974, the Esher Bypass was built across the middle of Esher Common. To try and compensate for the loss of Common land, 90 acres were added to the Commons in other areas (known as “exchange land”). After construction went ahead, local groups such as Cobham Conservation Group and FEDORA were formed by locals who had opposed the Bypass, with the objective of preventing further development on much treasured common land and historic local sites.
Traffic fills the roads with signs which read 'Esher Welcomes Piled Up Traffic', while ministers in old-fashioned clothes labelled names such as 'General Short Sight', 'Outdated Ideas', 'Self Interested Trader' walk along the pavement.
"We'll nip through the agenda before any of 'em wakes up". The Councillors are all asleep as the Chairman and Town Clerk "nip through the agenda" without them noticing.
Commuters are sitting in a train carriage looking angrily across at the Minister of Transport, who is reading the 'Plan for New Esher By-Pass'.
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