THE WILLINGALES OF LOUGHTON. 163
"Willingale's defiant act was treated by the Justices as a theft
and he, not having knowledge enough to assert his right before
them, was convicted" ; and Mr. Houghton Townley, in his book
English Woodlands and their Story, published in 1910, says
(p. 180) : "The real romance of Epping is the story of one
common man, a woodman, who used his axe at midnight, and
saw his son die in prison in defence of the right of the commoners
of Loughton to lop the trees of Epping Forest," and (p. 181)
he copies, almost verbatim, Mr. Shaw Lefevre's assertions:
"Willingale and his three sons, who contested the validity of
the interdiction, were promptly arrested and sent to prison as
felons. One of the sons was put in a damp cell, where he caught
a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia and resulted in
death." But even in copying, Mr. Townley introduces a further
variation—the number of sons has increased to three !
It was reserved for Mr. Ernest Linder, of Buckhurst Hill (a
former Member of this Club) to disentangle the knot. Mr. Linder
re-investigated the facts by personal enquiry of surviving
relatives of the parties concerned, and by consulting contemporary
records ;6 and I have myself, during the past months, followed in
his footsteps, and am able to confirm and (in a few instances)
to supplement his results, which may be summarized as follows :
Old Thomas Willingale, the father, never went to prison. It
is true that at a slightly earlier date, on Dec. 8th, 1865,
he was summoned at the instance of the lord of the manor
before the Epping bench for injury to the Forest trees, but the
case was dismissed. Thomas was, indeed, the leading spirit
in asserting his right to lop, but except for the dismissed summons
he was not proceeded against. He was an old man of well over
70 years at the time ; of his sons, Samuel, Thomas, John and
William, then aged 26, 23, 18 and 15 respectively, Samuel only,
the eldest, and his two cousins, Alfred Willingale (aged 23) and
William Higgins (aged 23), all of Loughton, were the
victims of the lord of the manor. Against these three a sum-
mons was granted, returnable at Waltham Abbey police-court,
and there, on March 7th, 1866, they were fined 2s. 6d. each, with
11s. costs and damage, or in default of payment seven days'
imprisonment.
6 It should be noted that when Mr. Linder, in 1911, drew the attention of Lord Eversley
to the inaccuracy of his statements concerning the Willingales, his lordship did not dispute Mr.
Linder's facts, but accepted them, adding (in litt. 27-12-1911) "it is strange that I should have
made the statement about the elder Willingale so many years ago and so often without being
corrected sooner."