More-than-human histories and the failure of grand state schemes: Sylviculture in the New Forest, England

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 451-472

  Griffin, Carl J ^a  

^a QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Enclosure; Forests; Non human; Resistance; State schemes

Indexed keywords

BUREAUCRACY; ECONOMIC HISTORY; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; FOREST MANAGEMENT; FORESTRY PRODUCTION; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; HUNTING; INCOME DISTRIBUTION; MEDIEVAL; MODERNITY; NATION STATE; NINETEENTH CENTURY; PLANTATION FORESTRY; SILVICULTURE;

ENGLAND; HAMPSHIRE; NEW FOREST; UNITED KINGDOM;

MUS; ORYCTOLAGUS CUNICULUS;

EID: 77958457582     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474474010376135     Document Type: Article

References (177)

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12. Tsouvalis, A Critical Geography, p. 23.
13. For several other recent attempts to deploy actor network approaches to the study of more-than-human historical geographies see: D. Matless, P. Merchant and C. Watkins, 'Animal Landscapes: Otters and Wildfowl in England 1945-1970', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 30, 2005, pp. 191-205
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15. C. Griffin, 'Protest Practice and (Tree) Cultures of Conflict: Understanding the Spaces of "Tree Maiming" in Eighteenth-and Early Nineteenth-Century England', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 40, 2008, pp. 91-108
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17. The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire was, and remains, the largest English state forest.
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21. See Langton, 'Forests in Early-Modern England and Wales'.
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23. Tsouvalis, A Critical Geography, p. 11.
24. J. Manwood, A Treatise and Discourse of the Lawes of the Forrest (London: Wight and Norton, 1598), p. 1.
25. G. White, The Natural History of Selborne (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993[1789]), p. 26.
26. C. Hall, Civilizing Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-1867 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).
27. J. Powell, The Public Lands of Australia Felix: Settlement and Land Appraisal in Victoria 1834-91 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 32
28. Also see J. Gascoigne, The Enlightenment and the Origins of European Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 69-71.
29. G. Jones, 'Swanimotes, Woodmotes and Courts of "Free Miners"', in J. Langton and G. Jones (eds) Forests and Chases of England and Wales c.1500-c.1850: Towards a Survey and Analysis (Oxford: St. John's College, 2005), pp. 42-3.
30. Charles Tilly, for instance, has stated that the growth of successful states was a function of the creation of efficient fiscal systems: Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).
31. C. Young, The Royal Forests of Medieval England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1979) pp. 115-6.
32. P. Stamper, 'Woods and Parks', in G. Astill and A. Grant (eds) The Countryside of Medieval England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) p. 129
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34. Tsouvalis, A Critical Geography, p. 14.
35. N. James, A History of English Forestry (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), p. 16.
36. B. Bushaway, 'From Custom to Crime: Wood-Gathering in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century England: A Focus for Conflict in Hampshire, Wiltshire and the South', in J. Rule (ed.) Outside the Law: Studies in Crime and Order 1650-1850 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1982), pp. 65-101.
37. Langton, 'Forests in Early-Modern England', pp. 3-4.
38. M. Ogborn, 'Local Power and State Regulation in Nineteenth Century Britain', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17, 1992, pp. 215-26.
39. A. Giddens, The Nation State and Violence. Volume II of a Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985).
40. James, English Forestry, p. 136.
41. C. Tubbs, 'Early Encoppicements in the New Forest', Forestry, 37, 1964, p. 97
42. Langton, 'Forests in Early-Modern England', p. 6.
43. For the New Forest see H. Sumner, 'J. Norden's Survey of Medieval Coppices in the New Forest', Proceedings of the Hants Field Club and Archaeology Society, 10, (1927), pp. 95-117.
44. D. Stagg, 'Silvicultural Inclosure in the New Forest to 1780', Proceedings of the Hants Field Club Archaeological Society, 45, 1989, p. 141.
45. R. Reeves, Use and Abuse of a Forest Resource. New Forest Documents 1632-1700 (Lyndhurst: New Forest Ninth Centenary Trust, 2006).
46. P. Warde, 'Fear of Wood Shortage and the Reality of the Woodland in Europe, c.1450-1850', History Workshop Journal, 62, 2006, pp. 29-57.
47. Philip Harling, The Waning of the 'Old Corruption': The Politics of Economic Reform in Britain, 1779-1846 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
48. D. Fletcher, 'Parliamentary Surveys', in J. Langton and G. Jones (eds) Forests and Chases of England and Wales c.1500-c.1850: Towards a Survey and Analysis (Oxford: St. John's College, 2005), p. 17.
49. O. Rackham, Woodlands (London: Collins, 2006), pp. 110-17.
50. C. Tubbs, The New Forest: History, Ecology and Conservation (Lyndhurst: New Forest Ninth Centenary Trust, 2001), p. 84.
51. Tubbs, 'Early Encoppicements', p. 95.
52. Sumner, 'Medieval Coppices', p. 95.
53. Tubbs, 'Early Encoppicements', pp. 96-8.
54. Tubbs, 'Early Encoppicements', p. 99.
55. Flower, 'Management History', p. 188.
56. G. Hammersley, 'The Crown Woods and their Exploitation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 30, 1957, pp. 136-61.
57. J. Evelyn, Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions (London: Royal Society, 1664).
58. P. Roberts, Minstead: Life in a 17th Century New Forest Community (Ashurst: Nova Foresta Publishing, 2002), p. 22.
59. Deputy Woodward's Accounts, 1670/1 and 1672/3, National Archives [hereafter NA] LR 9/17/898 and 900
60. Reeves, Use and Abuse, pp. 66-7 and 80-1.
61. Depositions as to the spoil of the woods, New Forest, 1673-77, NA E 178/6453
62. Tubbs, New Forest, pp. 85-6.
63. See 5th Report of H.M. Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues (B.P.P, vol. xliv, 1789).
64. Journal of the House of Commons [hereafter JHC], vol. x, 9 January and 8 February 1692.
65. Twelve petitions were presented to the House of Commons complaining about the loss of 'rights and privileges' attendant upon the creation of sylvicultural plantations: JHC, vol. xii, 21, 28 and 29 January and 7 February; 5, 28 March 1698 and 14 June 1699.
66. 5th Report, pp. 25-6
67. 'Staple Oak, Ether Rice and Pigknowle Enclosures', NA LR 5/1/4
68. 'Further Case', NA T1/959/88.
69. Two surviving coppices of 25 acres were also enclosed but were not recognized as statutory sylvicultural enclosures: Tubbs, New Forest, p. 86.
70. Memorial of the misbehaviour of the Deputy Surveyor, Deputy Woodward, and Purveyor (10 documents), n.d. [but c.1751], Hampshire County Record Office [hereafter HCRO] 149M89/R4/6131.
71. Unpublished manuscript on forest management, Lord Glenbervie, c.1820 [hereafter GlenbervieMss.], HCRO 11M74 F1, p. 4
72. 'Further case concerning Inclosures in New Forest', for opinion of Attorney and Solicitor General, dated 23 January 1805, NA T1/959/88.
73. Stagg, 'Silvicultural Inclosure to 1780', p. 142.
74. GlenbervieMss., p. 17.
75. 5th Report, passim.
76. Draft petition to the House of Lords from Rev. Sir C. Mill and other owners of lands and tenements adjoining to the New Forest, c.1792, HCRO 2M30/669
77. Hampshire Chronicle, 23 January 1792.
78. 59 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 86 and 41 Geo. 3, c.108. See: GlenbervieMss., p. 30.
79. R. Thorne, 'Douglas, Sylvester, Baron Glenbervie(1743-1823)', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7918 (27 May 2007).
80. 'Case for the opinion of the HM Attorney General on the construction of the Act of 9 and 10th William 3rd c36 for the increase and preservation of timber in the New Forest', 20 August 1804, NA T 1/934/79.
81. It was later stated that 1028 acres were enclosed: GlenbervieMss., pp. 131-2
82. Enclosure order, 12 June 1809, NA F 10/223
83. Commission for enclosure, 11 April 1814, NA E 163/20/11/1
84. Turnerto Milne, 21 January and 14 December 1830, NA F 24/7.
85. Minutes of the Commissioners for enclosing 1022 acres in New Forest, 1808, NA F 20/54
86. GlenbervieMss., pp. 33-4.
87. Enclosure order, 12 June 1809, NA F 10/223.
88. Commission for enclosure, 11 April 1814, NA E 163/20/11/1
89. R. Turner, New Park to Under-secretary Milne, Office of Woods, 1 January 1816, NA F 24/4.
90. Turnerto Milne, 5 June 1828, 21 January and 14 December 1830, NA F 24/5 and 7.
91. A further 953 acres of Crown freehold land in the New Forest - that is to say land over which common rights did not pertain - were also reported to have been converted to sylviculture by 1823: Fourth report of the Commissioners of H.M. Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues (B.P.P., vol. cx, 1823), p. 27.
92. GlenbervieMss., pp. 7-8, 131-2.
93. Hampshire Telegraph, 26 December 1825
94. Second Report of the Commissioners of H.M. Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues (B.P.P, vol. cxlvii, 1816).
95. A later Deputy Surveyor, Gerald Lascelles, also claimed that pines had been planted in Ocknell Clump enclosure (created in 1768) in 1776. As Tubbsnotes though, Lascelles did not reference his source. After 1819, it would appear that a new system of raising oaks was adopted. Scotch firs, planted in 'united heads', were thinned out by removing alternate rows with the vacant spaces filled with four foot high oaks. After a year the branches of the remaining firs were thinned and shortened; after two years the branches were 'generally' cut off; and after three years the fir rows were removed year by year until the plantation contained only oaks.
96. G.W. Lascelles, Thirty-Five Years in the New Forest (London: Edward Arnold, 1915)
97. Tubbs, New Forest, p. 220
98. Hampshire Telegraph, 26 December 1825.
99. W. Cobbett, Rural Rides (London: Penguin, 2001[1830]), p. 416.
100. 5th Report, p. 70
101. The Commissioners recommended that all keepers, in lieu of previous perquisites, should be provided with a house and a small enclosure: 5th Report, p. 33.
102. GlenbervieMss., p. 61
103. 5th Report, p. 12 and appendix 22.
104. 5th Report, p. 26 and appendices 22 and 25.
105. 5th Report, p. 26 and appendices 12 and 22.
106. The 1751/2 plantations were created by removing the 'stubs' of old trees and then broadcasting the acorns without ploughing. This meant that the enclosures became 'good cover' for pheasants but the young oaks were crowded amongst the 'ling and other trumpery'. Consequently, the enclosures of 1768 and 1775 were made by clearing and ploughing the ground prior to the planting of acorns, a return to the policy adopted for the 1670-3 'illegal' plantations: J. Smith, Langley, to Bedford, 27 April 1752, HCRO 149M89/R4/6142
107. cited in P. Roberts, Ruin and Reform, New Forest Administration 1739-1769 (Lyndhurst: New Forest Ninth Centenary Trust, 2006), pp. 215-6
108. GlenbervieMss., pp. 6-7
109. Reeves, Use and Abuse, pp. 66-70.
110. 5th Report 1789, appendix 19.
111. 5th Report 1789, p. 26 and appendix 25
112. GlenbervieMss., p. 35.
113. GlenbervieMss., pp. 111-124
114. 5th Report 1789, p. 25 and appendix 25.
115. 5th Report 1789, p. 25.
116. The fences were still in existence by 1805 even though the plantations had been laid open in 1724/5: 'Further Case', NA T1/959/88
117. An Account of Several Acts of Parliament made for the Preservation of Timber & c. within His Majesty's Forests and Elsewhere particularly in the New Forest, HCRO 149M89/R4/6122.
118. 5th Report, appendix 25
119. GlenbervieMss., p. 38.
120. J. Smith, New Forest, to [unclear], 11 November 1751, HCRO 149M89/R4/6142
121. Roberts, Ruin and Reform, pp. 201-2.
122. Information of J. Throckmorton and copies of threatening letters sent to him, n.d [but November/December 1753], HCRO 149M89/R4/6124.
123. 5th Report 1789, pp. 16 and 20.
124. GlenbervieMss., p. 58.
125. Fines for offences in the Forest, 1756
126. Memorial to the Duke of Bedford from J. Smith and J. Oviatt, regarders, 1750, HCRO 149M89/R4/6125 and 6124.
127. T. Nichols, Observations on the Propagation...of Oak Trees...Applying to...[the] New Forest... (Southampton, T. Baker, 1791), pp. 17-18.
128. Copy of an intended memorial to the Treasury, J. Smith, New Forest, n.d. [but 1748], HCRO 149M89/R4/6124.
129. GlenbervieMss., pp. 48-9, 42.
130. W. Gilpin, Remarks on Forest Scenery and Other Woodland Views (London: Smith, elder & Co., 1791/1834), pp. 116-17.
131. Gilpin, less famously, was also an active advocate of poor law reform and instrumental in equipping his parish with a workhouse under the so-called 'Gilbert's Act'
132. The well-publicised workhouse was supposed to aid the comfort of the aged, the education of the young, and 'reclaim' the 'refractory' and 'abandoned people': W. Gilpin, An Account of a New Poor-House, Erected in the Parish of Boldre (London: Philanthropic Reform, 1796), p. 22.
133. C. Vancouver, General View of the Agriculture of Hampshire (London: Richard Phillips, 1810), p. 81.
134. C. Tubbs, 'The Development of the Smallholding and Cottage Stock-Keeping Economy of the New Forest', Agricultural History Review, 13, 1965, p. 26.
135. Calendar of Treasury Books, vol. xvii, pt. I, p. 169.
136. Extract of a letter from Mr Hawkins, Purveyor, Lyndhurst 12 January 1756 quoted in 'An Account of Several Acts of Parliament', made for the Preservation of Timber &c. within His Majesty's Forests and Elsewhere particularly in the New Forest', HCRO 149M89/R4/6122.
137. See J. Smith, New Forest, to [unclear], 11 November 1751
138. S. Miller, Lyndhurst, to R. Butcher, London, 13 March 1752, Affadavit of J. Throckmorton, Under Keeper, and his servants, 15 December 1753, HCRO 149M89/R4/6142 and 6124.
139. Evidence of H. Tombes, Deputy Surveyor, 17 December 1788 and 'State of enclosures', 5th Report, pp. 96, 106 and 108.
140. For such attacks elsewhere see Griffin, 'Protest Practice and (Tree) Cultures of Conflict', pp. 91-108.
141. Hampshire Chronicle, 26 October 1815.
142. Evidence of N. Jervoise Coleman, regarder, 22 November 1788, 5th Report, appendix 15, p. 64. Charcoal making was not a potential cause of forest fires for the simple reason that the process necessitated that the fire was covered by turves.
143. C. Griffin, 'Knowable Geographies? The Reporting of Incendiarism in the Eighteenth-and Early Nineteenth-Century English Provincial Press', Journal of Historical Geography, 32, 2006, pp. 38-56.
144. 5th Report, p. 223. The LR2 series at the National Archives contains much 18th-century Deputy Surveyor's correspondence but are not concerned with plantation management per se. A list of the incendiary fires is available from the author.
145. Hampshire Chronicle, 27 May 1793.
146. Turner, New Forest to under-secretary Milne, Office of Woods, 26 February and 23 March 1827, NA F 24/3
147. Southampton Herald, 26 February 1827.
148. Hampshire Chronicle, 20 June 1808.
149. Hampshire Telegraph, 20 and 27 March
150. Hampshire Chronicle, 3 and 17 April 1820.
151. Turnerto Milne, 7 March, NA F 24/5
152. Hampshire Advertiser, 15 August and 21 October 1829.
153. For a good overview of recent work on the practices of rural protest see: B. Reay, Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), pp. 143-72.
154. C. Griffin, '"Cut Down by Some Cowardly Miscreants": Plant Maiming, or the Malicious Cutting of Flora, as an Act of Protest in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Rural England', Rural History, 19, 2008, pp. 29-54.
155. Glenbervie, West Lodge, New Forest to Turner, 17 September 1813, NA F 10/193.
156. Turnerto Glenbervie, 21 September 1813 and 8 January 1814, NA F 24/2.
157. Turnerto Glenbervie, 8 January 1814, NA F 24/2.
158. Turnerto J. Thornburrow, London, 4 December 1813, and to Glenbervie, 15 February 1814, NA F 10/193.
159. Abraham Clayton, Brockenhurst to Milne, 13 February 1814, NA F 10/193.
160. Turnerto Milne, 1 March 1814, NA F 10/193.
161. Milne to Turner, 17 December 1813; Glenbervie, Brighton to Rt. Hon. Sir George Rose, 20 January 1814, NA F 10/193.
162. Turnerto Milne, 4 March 1814, NA F 24/3.
163. Rose, Cuffnells to Glenbervie, 23 January; Glenbervie, Brighton to Rose, 26 January; Clayton to Milne, 13 February; Turnerto Glenbervie, 15 February; Turnerto Glenbervie, 30 May 1814, NA F 10/193.
164. For plantation management see: NA F 24/4 and 5.
165. GlenbervieMss., pp. 133-6.
166. Cobbett, Rural Rides, p. 416.
167. Tubbs, 'Stock-keeping', p. 29.
168. Tubbs, New Forest, p. 78.
169. L. Simon, V. Clement and P. Pech, 'Forestry Disputes in Provincial France During the Nineteenth Century: The Case of the Montagne de Lure', Journal of Historical Geography, 33, 2007, p. 16.
170. B. Braun, The Intemperate Rainforest: Nature Culture and Power on Canada's West Coast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
171. B. Latour, Aramis, Or the Love of Technology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
172. N. Blomley, 'Making Private Property: Enclosure, Common Right and the Work of Hedges', Rural History, 18, 2007, pp. 1-21.
173. Matless et al., 'Animal Landscapes: Otters and Wildfowl in England 1945-1970', p. 192.
174. P. Cloke and O. Jones, 'Turning in the Graveyard: Trees and the Hybrid Geographies of Dwelling, Monitoring and Resistance in a Bristol Cemetery', Cultural Geographies, 11, 2004, p. 314.
175. Cobbett, Rural Rides, p. 443.
176. Glenbervie, New Forest, to Mr. Turner, 17 September 1813, NA F10/193
177. Griffin, 'Protest Practice'.