Appendix No. 1.
v
The satisfaction with which the celebrated judgment of the Master of
the Bolls of 24th of November, 1874, was received by those who for a
long series of years had watched with hopefulness the attempts to
preserve Epping Forest, was tempered by a latent fear that the Corpora-
tion would look upon the recovered land more as a park than as a tract
of woodland to be retained in its primitive wildness and luxuriance.
Gauging the opinion of the main body by the public utterances of some
of its members, it was soon seen that the Corporation did not thoroughly
appreciate the true nature and responsibility of the charge committed to
it. Vast schemes of drainage, road-making, clearing, &c., were talked
of as necessary and urgent "improvements," and a widespread feeling
of uneasiness arose, second only to that which prevailed before the
decision of Sir George Jessel. The writer ventured to put some of these
fears into words, in letters to the public press in the year 1875, and to
suggest plans of Forest management which have since been adopted and
expanded by various writers.
These letters called forth a response from Mr. J. T. Bedford (a name
to be always honourably associated with the rescue of Epping Forest),
assuring the public that there was not the slightest intention of trans-
forming "the people's Forest into a people's park," or of depriving it of
any portion of its naturalness and sylvan charm. The "Epping Forest
Act," which received the royal sanction on the 8th of August, 1878,
seemed to afford, in its stringent language, additional securities for the
integrity of the recovered Forest and its conservation as a woodland.
But how little even the most definite promises and the strictest Acts of
Parliament are to be trusted in matters affecting open spaces was
abundantly shown during the years 1878—83. Roads and drains were
made in every direction recklessly and without due consideration or
knowledge; the quiet and rural Chingford was wilfully transformed into a
bad imitation of Bartholomew Fair and Cremorne; while no less than
three railway and tramway schemes, fatal to the best interests of the
Forest, were pressed forward, two of them being vigorously encouraged
by the very bodies to whose eare and protection the woodlands had been
confided by Parliament. We honestly believe that, had not public opinion
spoken out on many occasions in firm and unmistakable tones, the
schemes of spoliation and "management" put forward within five years
of the passing of the Act would have degraded the place from a fine free
open woodland into a third-rate park, and for ever extinguished its chief
charm and value as one of the national recreation-grounds.
In accordance with the above views, and being impressed with the
importance of Epping Forest as one of the finest districts for the study of
Natural History in the county, the Essex Field Club has always con-
sistently and vigorously protested against any schemes likely to injuriously
affect it. In so doing the Club has acted also on behalf of the general
public, the interests of the naturalists and ordinary visitors to the
Forest being, as Mr. Meldola has shown, almost absolutely identical.
Undoubtedly the most serious attacks on the integrity of the Forest were
the three railway projects put forward during the period 1874—83,
inasmuch as the evil effects of a railway are, from our point of view, so
extensive, insidious, and irremediable. In the session of 1874 the Great
Eastern Railway Company applied to Parliament for power to extend
their Chingford line to Fairmead Lodge, near High Beach, a distance of
two and a half miles across the Forest. This scheme was successfully
opposed, and resulted in Parliament sanctioning an extension of about
six furlongs, but so that the line did not enter the Forest at all. In 1877
a new bill was put forward for a line from Chingford to High Beach.
This was rejected by the House of Lords, but was again introduced into
Parliament in 1881, and supported with great energy by the Company