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 Robertson and Mr. Garrett 
Morten were the most active members. Mr. Robert- 
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 filched 
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 
