8 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 



weU as a number of breweries, dye-houses and steam engines were sup- 

 plied by pipe lines at high pressure day and night at a cost of a penny 

 per house per week. The cost, measured in quantity of water supphed, 

 had been reduced, it was said, to one-twentysixth of what it had been 

 formerly, and the entire supply was managed by one man and a boy. 

 Asked by the incredulous commissioners what would happen to taps and 

 lead-piping left all night in the house of a working man, he replied that 

 the high pressure of the water was a sufficient deterrent to thievish intent 

 and acted as an automatic poUceman. He pointed out also, that gratitude 

 for their priceless treasure of a permanent and plentiful supply of fresh 

 water might also be reckoned upon, especially by the housewives to 

 whom it was an unspeakable boon. 



Within their allotted sphere Hawkesley and his colleagues worked 

 wonders, but they were defeated in their wider aims by the political 

 society in which they lived. Local politics, as an examination of any 

 municipal election at this time would show, were a reflection of the 

 struggle between rival property interests, and the focus of the struggle 

 was the question of enclosure. The forces were very evenly balanced. 

 While the green band of property rights hemmed in the town on three 

 sides its further expansion was impossible. Industriahsts on the look out 

 for sites went outside the town altogether, to Basford, Bulwell, even to 

 Arnold. Tradesmen saw themselves doomed to stagnate; business men 

 could not expand; the building industry chafed impotently against the 

 barrier of the common rights which prevented it from loading the sur- 

 rounding meadows and fields with more slums; but above all, the owners 

 of the common land — for it was owned in severalty though it was pastured 

 in common — were prevented from entering into their inheritance of en- 

 hanced site values by the postponement of enclosure. Truly a formidable 

 combination. 



But enclosure was held at bay, except for a few minor concessions, 

 until 1845. The owners of small houses in the town opposed it; their 

 houses would be empty and they would be ruined, they said. The bur- 

 gesses clung to their rights of common, though not more than 185 out of 

 3,000 actually used them for pasturing their cattle. But all took pleasure 

 in the open spaces round the town, in the cricket matches on the Forest, 

 the walks on the Lammas Lands and Meadows, the snow-balling 

 and skating on the frozen floods. Nottingham could stretch its 

 legs and fill its lungs; already the Basford enclosures had robbed 

 the people, it was said, of 1,500 acres of common playground 

 where they had formerly gone in nutting parties, and danced to 

 the fiddler's playing. The enclosure of Nottingham itself would 

 stifle them. However, the political complexion of the borough 

 changed under the influence of the new voters of 1835 and within ten 

 years, enclosure triumphed. Public spirit had already been whipped into 

 reluctant activity by a fearful attack of cholera; there was a team of 

 enthusiasts at work, sharp-shooters, skirmishing on the flank of vested 

 interests wherever they were found. Hawkesley was the most distinguish- 

 ed, but there were others; a doctor, a parson, a local historian, a few 

 businessmen and manufacturers. The complex struggle of conflicting 

 property groups, a struggle in which disinterested public spirit and expert 



