THE WILLINGALES OF LOUGHTON.
167
manor should purchase from him an encroachment of about
two perches which Willingale had himself effected from the
"waste" as a squatter during 27 years, and which he now claimed
as his own freehold by squatter's right : which rather goes to
show that the difference between Willingale and his Lord,
as regards illegal acquisition of land, was one of degree, rather
than of kind ! These facts are taken from a letter written by
old Willingale himself, on December 10th, 1866, to the Wood-
ford, Buckhurst Hill and Loughton Advertiser, which appeared
in the issue of that paper dated December 15th, 1866.
Local feeling ran so remarkably high in connection with
these happenings that one has to be very careful before admitting
the accuracy of statements made by the various partisans
concerning their opponents and their methods. In these cir-
cumstances, it is not to be wondered at that the characters
of the Willingales were bitterly assailed ; but I can find no
justification for the attacks. Old Thomas had been employed
regularly by Sir George Carrol, a City Alderman and ex-Lord
Mayor, resident in Loughton, who left him a legacy in his will ;
and even their detractors admit that during the previous five
years, out of every hundred trees felled in the Forest, eighty had
succumbed to the mattock and axe of the Willingales—father
and sons—in the course of their avocation : they can hardly
have been the ne'er-do-wells alleged by some of their opponents !
Attempts were made by the lord of the manor's agents
to effect a settlement out of Court of the Chancery action, by
offering Willingale what, to a man in his circumstances, were
substantial sums : but in vain.
The old man stood firm. He and his family were given
shelter in a wooden cottage in the Lower Road at Golding's
Hill by an elderly Loughton lady, Mrs. Tyser,12 and "he
consistently refused a monetary settlement.
The Chancery suit went on : and although brought auto-
matically to a stop by old Willingale's death four years later,
it sufficed to give breathing time in which to marshal the forces
of those interested in saving the Forest and especially to bring
in the Corporation of London to their support.
For years past, the two surviving Willingale brothers, Thomas
and William, have boasted that they were the individuals who
12 This lady was presumably the Elizabeth Tyser who died 27 Feb. 1868, aet 80.