IC2 
NATURE NOTES. 
save when a Minister of the Crown, ever since. Mr. John Locke* 
who had been Chairman of the House of Commons Committee, 
Mr. Charles Buxton and Mr. John Stuart Mill, were amongst the 
first members ; Mr. Leslie Stephen acted for a short time as 
honorary secretary ; and Mr. Philip Lawrence, to whose efforts 
it was largely due that the Society was formed, advised and 
guided the new body with consummate skill and ability in the 
capacity of honorary solicitor. One is tempted to dwell on the 
succession of victories the little Society achieved within the next 
ten years, but we have in this paper to do with the present 
rather than the past. Suffice it to say that a series of decisions 
of the Courts, culminating in the judgment of Sir George 
Jessel, by which the enclosure of some three thousand acres in 
Epping Forest was declared illegal, amply justified the position 
assumed by the Society, and established beyond question, that 
a lord of a manor cannot enclose a common against the will 
of the Commoners. At the same time the Metropolitan 
Commons Act of 1866, and the several Acts passed on the 
basis of its provisions, converted into fact the second thesis of 
the society, that all that was necessary to complete the work of 
securing London commons to the public, was local management 
without prejudice to existing legal rights. By this means 
nuisances are prevented, order preserved, and improvements 
made without depriving a common of its distinguishing features. 
The work of the Society soon grew beyond its first limits. 
Some time before the final victory in the Epping Forest case, 
the late Mr. Fawcett had obtained the support of the Commons 
Preservation Society in his intrepid stand against the wholesale 
enclosure of rural commons under the Enclosure Acts. The 
Society became the vigilant critic of every proposal to enclose 
a common which came before Parliament. Enclosure was en- 
tirely suspended for several years, and in 1876, by passing the 
Commons Act, the Legislature provided an alternative method 
of treating rural commons — that of managing them as open 
spaces, and declared that no common should be enclosed unless 
it were shown that the interests both of the neighbourhood and 
of the nation at large would be served ; while in these rare cases 
ample provision of recreation ground and field gardens should be 
made. The result of this legislation and of the untiring efforts of the 
Society to ensure attention to its provisions is, that since 1876 
30,000 acres of common land have been placed under regulation, 
that only commons in retired and mountainous parts have been 
enclosed. Where enclosure has been sanctioned, in some cases 
large allotments for recreation and field-gardens have been set 
out, and in others a general right of roaming, except where the 
land is cultivated or planted, has been reserved to the public. 
Moreover, proposals to enclose have become fewer and fewer, 
and have now almost ceased. 
It was not long after the passing of the Commons Act that 
the attention of the Commons Preservation Society was first 
