Mark Gorman is co-author of a new book exploring the almost forgotten work of unemployed labourers who transformed the local landscape in the late 19th century
Epping Forest is far from being a natural landscape. For centuries, people have been making use of the forest, and in doing so, have continually altered ‘the natural aspect’. The southern forest is no exception – from the 1880s to the first decades of the 20th century, the terrain we know today was created largely by unemployed workers.
When the City of London Corporation took over Epping Forest in 1878, they set about altering the landscape of Wanstead Flats, Wanstead Park and Leyton Flats. There was an economic depression in the late 1880s and 1890s and local worthies formed committees to support unemployed labouring men and women. There were public appeals for money and later, government grants began.
Local Distress Committees organised public works projects and all the lakes on the Flats, and several in the Park, were created or much altered. Heronry Lake was enlarged, the island created and the bottom concreted by hundreds of unemployed labourers working only with hand tools. The Ornamental Waters were de-silted and restored. Meanwhile, on Wanstead Flats, Alexandra Lake was created from scratch, and West Ham labourers built the Model Yacht Pond (now Jubilee Pond). Sports fields were laid out on the Flats and drained. The Hollow Ponds at Whipps Cross were also enlarged and a swimming lake created.
The conditions the men faced were back-breaking, involving levelling uneven heathland, planting and tilling, as well as digging and draining the areas that were to become the lakes in the southern forest. A Forest Gate resident, observing the work on Wanstead Flats in the late 1890s, commented that “it was positively distressing to see the poor ‘unemployed’, mostly men of miserable physique, engaged in the useless labour of turning over the heavy frozen clay.”
Not all the men worked willingly, but quite minor offences could lead to dismissal. Half a dozen men were removed in March 1907 for offences ranging from refusing to stop smoking and abusive language to “being absolutely lazy.” The works foreman declared: “We are drifting into the casual labour class,” comparing them unfavourably with previous batches of men. Although those dismissed could appeal against the decision, most appeals were rejected.
The work of these men is now almost forgotten, but we owe the modern-day environment of the southern forest, with its playing fields, lakes and copses, to the unemployed labourers of East London who, in the space of 25 years, transformed the face of this landscape.
Changing the Face of the Forest by Mark Gorman, Peter Williams and Andrew Cole is priced £6 and available from a number of local outlets. For more information, visit wnstd.com/ctfotf
