Gerrard Winstanley (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Gerrard Winstanley (1609 - 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer and political activist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Winstanley was one of the founders of the English group known as the True Levellers for their beliefs, based upon Christian communism, and as the Diggers for their actions because they took over public lands and dug them over to plant crops. They self-identified as True Levellers, while the Digger name was coined by their contemporaries. Gerrard Winstanley's early life is broadly unknown, however it is known that he was baptised in 1609 in the parish of Wigan, then part of the West Derby hundred of Lancashire, and that he was the son of an Edward Winstanley, mercer. His mother's identity remains unknown and he could have been born anywhere in the parish of Wigan. 1] The parish of Wigan contained the townships of Abram, Aspull, Billinge-and-Winstanley, Dalton, Haigh, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Orrell, Pemberton, and Upholland, as well as Wigan itself.