50 HAMPSTEAD HEATH. 
extent allowed by the general law to tenants for life. 
“In 1829,” he said, “I lost my Bill for building on 
other parts of my property, and having always been 
thwarted, I must now see what I can do to turn the 
Heath to account, and get what I can. By the outcry 
that has been raised against me, I have been deprived of 
£50,000 a year. . . . It never entered my head to 
destroy Hampstead Heath at all, until I found that 
I was thwarted in my Bill that I brought into 
Parliament.” He added, however, that he had never 
promised not to build on the Heath, if full powers 
of leasing elsewhere were conferred upon him. “I 
am not disposed,” he said, “to make any concession ; 
in fact, I will not do so.” 
The subject of the Heath had already engaged the 
attention of the Metropolitan Board of Works, who, 
alarmed as to the possibility of its inclosure, were pre- 
pared to negotiate for the purchase of the lord’s rights ; 
but the price suggested on behalf of Sir Thomas— 
£400,000, or £1,600 an acre—was so excessive that 
nothing was possible in this direction. 
Sir Thomas Wilson’s lawyer supported his em- 
ployer’s evidence before the Committee, by asserting in 
the strongest manner the right of the lord to treat the 
Heath as his private property, denying the rights of 
copyholders, and claiming the power of inclosing under 
the Statute of Merton, or under the customs of his 
Manor. Very soon after the report of the Committee 
of 1865, Sir Thomas Wilson began to put his claims to 
a practical proof. He commenced the erection of a 
