BANSTEAD COMMONS. 197 



formed, under the title of the Banstead Commons 

 Protection Society, for the purpose of resisting them. 

 Of this Committee Mr. Hamilton Fletcher was chair- 

 man, and Mr. James Nisbet Eobertson and Mr. Garrett 

 Morten were the most active members. Mr. Eobert- 

 son was the owner of a house and twenty acres of land, 

 and Mr. Morten of three acres of land, with undoubted 

 rights of common attaching to them. These gentle- 

 men undertook to challenge at law the proceedings of 

 Sir John Hartopp. They were joined by two other 

 copyholders named Bennett, who owned a small pro- 

 perty on Burgh Heath, and who had for many years 

 taken furze and sand from the Common. They also 

 strengthened their position by purchasing a small pro- 

 perty on Burgh Heath, in respect of which rights 

 over the Commons undoubtedly existed. They formed 

 a somewhat slender nucleus of opposition to Sir John 

 Hartopp, and it was, perhaps, a great risk to commence 

 a suit against a Lord of the Manor, who had shown 

 such determination to spare no expenditure that was 

 necessary to assert his right to inclose ; but there was no 

 alternative but to see the Commons gradually niched 

 away, and the Banstead Committee and their advisers 

 rightly judged that when public opinion was so much 

 roused on the subject of open spaces, it needed only a 

 sturdy and judicious resistance to achieve success, 

 though the precise means might not be altogether 

 obvious. 



These gentlemen, however, by the advice of Mr. 

 Robert Hunter, who had been engaged in so many 



