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From:
Subject: [HWE] 17th Century Walloons in the Fens
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 19:27:05 EST


Hello Everyone

I came across 2 articles on the internet which gave a good account of the
Walloons in the Fens in the 17th century

I've cut and pasted them both as they appeared on the net

They were not part of a website - the pages was just there on their own

The first article does not mention a source for the information, but there
were a couple of things that i found very interesting. I have read from one
book that there were no Huguenots in Sandtoft and the Fens. The article
says;

"According to some sources, anumber of French Protestants -- Huguenots --
also joined the colony .... "

I've also read that the Walloons who came over were not involved in drainage
work. The article says ....

"Vermuyden brought over a number of Dutch and Flemish (probably) Walloon
settlers and actively engaged them in the reclamation work"


The 2nd article does have some sources listed and goes into more detail
about the geography.

Hope you find something interesting or useful

Regards
David Anker
Yorkshire ENG


------------------------------------------------

THE DRAINING OF HATFIELD CHASE
by Rita Effnert




Hatfield Chase, situated a few miles northeast of Doncaster, was a Royal
Hunting ground until approximately 350 years ago. In extent it included the
parishes of Hatfield and Thorne and the eastern parts of Fishlake. Rich in
fish, game, and deer, roughly half the area was low-lying, sparsely wooded
moorland, the other half meres, streams, and marshes watered by the Rivers
Torne, Idle, and Don. At that time the Don divided into two channels near
Staniforth, one course meandering northward to join the River Aire at Snaith,
the other taking a more circuitous route to the Trent at Aldingfleet. Water
provided the chief, sometimes only, mode of transport. Communication between
Hatfield and Thorne was usually by boat, wedding and funeral parties
frequently having to row to church at Hatfield. One of the meres between
Thorne and Tudworth supported 20 fisheries, each of which paid a tribute of
1,000 fishes to the lords of Conisbrough. Though the area included some
common land it was generally unlawful for the local inhabitants to take fish,
game, or especially venison from the Chase. However, they had a reputation
for showing little respect for the law, which wasupheld only spasmodically
and with great difficulty. Poaching was rife.On 24 May 1626 King Charles I
granted a charter to Cornelius VERMUYDEN giving him the authority to drain
the Chase and adjoining marshlands in the Isle of Axholme. Cornelius was the
son of Giles Vermuyden and Sarah (nee WERKENDET) and was born in 1590 on the
Isle of Tholen in Zealand, Holland. By 1625 he had gained a reputation as a
skillful drainage engineer and was living in London. After visiting the Chase
at the invitation of the King, Vermuyden agreed to drain the area in return
for one-third of the reclaimed land. Another third was to go to the Crown,
the other to local tenants. Vermuyden brought over a number of Dutch and
Flemish (probably) Walloon settlers and actively engaged them in the
reclamation work. Some of them, along with wealthier compatriots of
Vermuyden, bought shares from him to raise capital for the venture. The
shareholders became known as the "Participants." According to some sources,
anumber of French Protestants -- Huguenots -- also joined the colony, which
eventually comprised some 200 families, and settled at Sandtoft to the east
of Hatfield just over the Lincolnshire border.Amongst other foreigners who
settled near Hatfield about this time was a person called DIMALINE or DU
MOULIN, who had two sons. One settled at or near Crowle and the other at
Hatfield Woodhouse who was called Peter Dimaline and he was my
5th-great-grandfather, paternal. The line goes down from him via two Peters,
Richard, and James, whose daughter Caroline was my great-grandmother. I got a
bit of a shock when I received her marriage certificate, Caroline DIMBERLINE,
thought it must be wrong, and that it sounded like a heroine out of a Barbara
Cartland novel. Once I found that she was born in Doncaster, I joined the
South Yorks Family History Society and came in touch with a man who had been
researching this family for the previous 10 years, and he handed everything
to me on a plate. I would just like to add that I have a son called Richard
and a granddaughter called Caroline -- both just sheer coincidence. The man
in Doncaster by the way is my 5th or so cousin and we meet each time I am in
Chesterfield.There is the likelihood somewhere in the Yorkshire connections
that there is a connection with George Washington -- but that's another
story.

------------------------------------------------------------------

FENLAND REBELS
Steve Booth on the enclosure of the Fens and popular resistance to it.
Published in Green Anarchist, Spring 1997, issue 45 -46, page 24 - 25.

The Fens are flat, low-lying areas of land found south of the Wash, in parts
of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and also south of the River Humber, near its
confluence with the River Trent. Prior to modern times, the fens were places
where the ground was flooded most of the year. Willows, alders and osiers
would grow, and people there were independent minded, moving across the
marshes on stilts or in small boats, and living by their wits off the land
and water. Wicken Fen and part of Holme and Woodwalton Fen are the only
places left now, which resemble the original fens; and are still home to
bitterns, sedge tailed butterflies and otters. The people of the fens were
distrustful of outsiders, and strangers passing through the area considered
them surly and ignorant; William Camden saying they were 'Rude, uncivil and
envious to all others whom they called upland men' (1507) or Sir William
Dugdale saying they were 'a rude and almost barbarous sort of lazy and
beggarly People.' (1662) Only the high ground offered any sort of refuge from
the inundations and marsh sickness. In the south, the Isle of Ely and in the
north, the Isle of Axeholme were two such places. Abbeys were set up on
raised grounds, cut off from worldly distractions, and a rhyme lists their
relative generosity:

Ramsey, rich in gold and fee
Thorney, flower of many fine tree,
Crowland, the courteous of meat and drink
Spalding, the gluttons as all men do think,
Peterborough the proud, as all men do say,
Sawtry, by the way, that old Abbay
Gave more alms in one day than all of they !

The Isle of Ely was reputedly the last place where the Saxons held out
against the Normans, the marshes proving impossible to cross except by secret
pathways. William the Conqueror tried to cross the bog at Aldreth, but
Hereward set fire to the reeds, roasting them alive. In the end, Abbot
Thurston and the other monks betrayed the pathways, and the Island was taken.
THE 17th CENTURY Around the time of the Civil War, systematic attempts to
drain the marshes were started. These met with stiff opposition from local
people who had long enjoyed rights of commons; with the taking away of
willows for basket making, reeds for thatching, and others. The drainage
schemes deprived them, the enclosure of common land with fences, hedges,
banks and ditches took away important resources from the rural economy. The
trouble started in 1607, when James I appointed a commission to examine the
drainage of the fen, after heavy floods claimed a larger than usual tract of
land. 'For the honour of this Kingdom' James declared 'I will not suffer
these counties to be abandoned to the will of the waters'. The Commission
resulted in the so-called 'Little Bill', and Gentlemen Adventurers set about
draining 6,000 acres of Waldersea. The drainage channels named Popham's Eau
and Londoners' Lode date from this period.

VERMUYDEN
After this, attempts at draining the fens got more serious. Dutch experts
were called in - Cornelius Vermuyden from Maartensdijk in Zeeland; Michael
and Abraham Vernatti; Matthew van Valkenburgh; Cornelius and Marcellus van
Bueren. Vermuyden was brought in during 1621 and was knighted by Charles I in
1629. He divided up the Great Level, the tract of land from Peterborough
across to Norfolk, into three areas; the North, Middle, and South Levels. The
Adventurers' efforts had not got them very far, and so Francis, Fourth Earl
of Bedford, was brought in to oversee the work. Vermuyden built the great
Bedford River, a long straight ditch 70 feet wide, 21 miles long, running
from Earith to Salters' Lode near Downham (1631). During this first period of
work, trouble started on the Great Level, in May 1632, at Soham. The
enclosures made by Sir Robert Heath, a friend of Vermuyden, were levelled by
commoners, and ditches were filled in. When the local sheriff tried to
execute warrants against the wreckers, a mob surrounded the sheriff, who was
consulting his undermen inside Soham church. At about the same time,
skepmakers rioted near Sutton, having been denied access to willows. Trouble
tended to follow a cycle, where legal moves would be made against enclosures
and drainage. These would fail, and so local direct action would take its
place. Action might take the form of attacks on work, mass attacks, masked
attacks, threats to workmen, mobs, nocturnal sabotage to sluice gates and
equipment. 'Fen Football' was popular, where people from two or more villages
would meet together at some open air spot, ostensibly for a game of football,
but really to attack drainage works and enclosures. Opposition to the work
was so intense that the courtier 'Adventurers' named the locals 'Fen Tigers'.


COURT OF SEWERS
Opposition suffered a setback in 1637, at St Ives, where the Court of Sewers
judged the work satisfactorily completed. At Glatton on Holme Fen, a legal
fund was started. Oliver Cromwell spoke on behalf of the fenmen. Almost at
once, the court ruling was seen to be flawed when land normally dry even in
winter was flooded. In 1638 (April 12th) the Court of Sewers held in
Huntingdon declared Bedford's drainage of the level to be imperfect. In the
period prior to the Civil War, there were many riots and disturbances,
perhaps the best example being at Whelpmore Fen, Isle of Ely (4th June 1638)
where a 'football crowd' levelled ditches. In 1641, actions were taken
against enclosures on the Earl of Manchester's estate at Somersham, Holywell,
Colne, Bluntisham and Earith. Attacks on earthworks were preceded by the
ringing of handbells and later messengers attempting to arrest the rioters
were assaulted. In August 1641, Littleport Sluice was sabotaged when a boat
packed with burning hassocks (bundles of straw) was directed down the channel
into the gate. Other attacks were made in 1642. CIVIL WAR After the 1638
Huntingdon Sewer Court judgement, work fell into neglect. Then, with the
Civil War, traditional authority was undermined. A series of riots took place
on Whittlesey Fen starting with 15th May 1643, where ditches were damaged and
the local magistrate threatened. Later, houses put up by land owners George
Glapthorne and Francis Underwood were pulled down. A rick owned by Sir Peter
Brettagne was fired.

ISLE OF AXEHOLME
The Isle of Axeholme near Doncaster was also the scene of a lot of anger
against the draining and enclosures. Near the start of the Civil War,
Bycker's Dyke and Snow Sewer sluices were pulled up and 8,000 acres or more
were flooded in December 1642, supposedly to prevent the Isle falling into
Royalist hands. The real purpose was probably to flood out the developers.
Armed guards under Thomas Peacock and Thomas Burton prevented the gates being
closed, and then once the level had been filled, closed the gates and kept
them closed to retain the water. John Lilburne and John Wildman, two leaders
of the Levellers, were involved with the fenlanders' cause. After the defeat
of the Levellers at Burford, their efforts followed a legal path. Axeholme
later became a centre of Quakerism and Nonconformity. Outsiders were brought
in to work on the drainage, particularly Dutchmen. The church at Sandtoft
became a focal point in the struggle and was repeatedly smashed, set on fire
and desecrated. In September 1659, a tax collector was murdered in Haxey
Carr, aka North Carr, a disputed piece of land between Lincolnshire and
Nottinghamshire. Many of the actions were carried out against one Nathaniel
Reading, a tax collector and bailiff, who sequestrated cattle and property
belonging to people who violated the enclosures. In May 1660, a confrontation
took place in Hatfield between a 2-3,000 strong mob and Reading together with
his cronies, one of whom, John Patterick, was killed in Hatfield churchyard.
William Lockier, one of the attackers, was shot through the thigh and died of
gangrene about a week later. During the years following, Reading seems to
have been repeatedly attacked. People from Belton also attacked other tax
collectors, freed cattle which had been sequestered, tore up crops -- to such
an extent that attempts to levy taxes were abandoned. Reading's house at
Sandtoft was attacked in 1661, 1666, on 19th August 1668 it was destroyed. In
1670, his rebuilt house was stormed, in March 1672 he was shot in the legs,
1687 he was shot at and his crops burned, cattle slaughtered. His house was
pulled to the ground in the 1690's, burned by a disguised mob in 1697 and so
on. Eventually, despite all this, Nathaniel Reading died in Belton in June
1716 of old age.

THE GREAT LEVEL
Work resumed on the Great Level after the Civil War, with the Bedford Act of
29th May 1649, after intensive lobbying of Parliament. William, 5th Earl of
Bedford was put in charge. Cromwell, who had earlier supported the fenlanders
(and earned himself the nickname 'Lord of the Fens' in the process) betrayed
them. It seems that his earlier actions had simply been a shrewd political
move to bolster up his own local support. The Cromwell of 1649 no longer
needed them.

Behold the great design which they do now determine Will make our bodies
pine, a prey to crows and vermine, For they do mean all fens to drain, and
waters over master All will be dry, and we must die, 'cause Essex calves want
pasture.

******
The feathered fowls have wings to fly to other nations But we have no such
things to help our transportations We must give place (oh grievous case) to
horned beasts and cattle Except that we can all agree to drive them out by
battle.
Powte's Complaint c. 1630

The long Bedford River had been declared imperfect and so in 1651 Vermuyden
began work on the New Bedford River, a 100 foot wide channel dug parallel to
the first. Scottish prisoners captured at the Battle of Dunbar (1650) were
put to work on the drain. Many of them deserted so Dutch prisoners were
brought in. There were riots at Swaffham in 1652 where women's' clothes were
worn as a disguise. In August 1653, troops under General Whalley had to be
sent to the Isle of Ely. Two guards were wounded and other soldiers got lost
in the fens at Swaffham. In 1654, a bridge over Beville Leam, near
Whittlesey, was burned down. There were many other acts of sabotage to
sluices. After the Restoration, the General Drainage act of 1663 superseded
the 'Pretended Act' of 1649. A corporation was set up to manage the Bedford
Levels, and this lasted through until 1914. Towards the end of the 17th
century, it became obvious that Vermuyden's scheme was flawed. The drainage
of the land relied on gravity. As the land dried out, the peat shrank, and
the ground level lowered. Pumps had to be installed. As early as 1678,
windmills were built, but it took until 1726, with a ruling on a mill at
Haddenham, for these to be accepted. The windmills worked in pairs, a smaller
mill at the head of the dyke lifted water a short height into the subsidiary
channel; at the bottom of which a larger mill lifted water to the main
channel, but both of these were dependent on the fickle wind. Later, steam
engines were installed by engineers like Telford and Rennie. In the 1920's,
these were replaced with diesel driven pumps.

LITTLEPORT RIOT
Perhaps one of the last riots in the fens took place in 1816, during the
agricultural slump following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The price of
wheat went up from 52s 6d a quarter to 103 shillings, and many people
starved. The riot started in the Globe Inn in Littleport on 22nd May 1816. A
mob went through the town blowing a horn, and attacking, looting and stoning
the shops. Travellers were robbed, the local vicar fled for his life and the
contents of his home turned out and smashed against the graves in the
churchyard. Most of the anger seems to have been against Henry Martin, a
local politician and dandy, who claimed the poor rate allowances were
sufficient. Four large punt guns were put on a waggon and the mob stormed
south to Ely where bakers' shops were looted. A smaller riot also followed at
Downham. The rioters eventually barricaded themselves inside the George &
Dragon Inn, but put up little resistance when the militia arrived from Bury
St Edmunds. The rebels were captured. One, Thomas Sindall, tried to escape
and was shot dead. The rest were tried at a special assize in Ely, one of the
many blots on English judicial history. Five were hung, many transported to
Australia.

CONCLUSION
The attacks on the drainage works were a response to the injustice of the
removal of commoners' rights. Partly they were motivated by resistance to
change, with drainage works seen as a form of witchcraft. People acted in
large groups against officials, bailiffs etc because draining and levelling
was widely seen as unjust. People acting alone or in small groups sabotaged
sluices and other equipment. People often masked up to prevent their being
identified. When people chose to act, they often proved effective. On the
whole, the draining of the fens and the enclosures proceeded because the acts
of revolt were sporadic and not consistently carried through. Many of the
attacks were motivated by practical objections to draining - that to drain
one parcel of land would cause worse floods in others. Often these views were
correct. The land grabbing 'Adventurers' were like the privatization fat cats
of the present, with the economic benefits of drainage being passed to just a
few, while the rest of the people in the area remained poor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
H C Darby's The Draining of the Fens (Cambridge University Press, 1940) A
good technical history of how the fens were drained, illustrated with maps
and photographs. Keith Lindley's Fenland Riots and the English Revolution
(Heinemann 1982) Christopher Hill style history of the Civil War period
giving comprehensive details of riots. J Wentworth-Day's A History of the
Fens (Harrap 1954) Written from the landowner / squire / Royalist / Colonel
Blimp angle giving details of what to shoot and fish. Old Fenland characters
described. Sympathetic description of the Littleport Riots.


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