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Winstanley, Gerrard

(1609-1676) UK textile merchant, grazier, political activist and author, active in the latter capacity from 1648 as a religious controversialist, a puritan (vulgarly) whose views on the events of the English Civil War were radically apocalyptic, and whose arguments about the tyranny of private property, expressed through his founding support of the Diggers (who transgressively attempted to farm on common land), remain sagaciously alarming today. His Utopia, The Law of Freedom in a Platform: Or True Magistracie Restored [for full title see Checklist below] (1652), directly expands upon the relatively primitive demands of the Diggers for equality, attempting to adduce Divine sanction for common ownership governed by "true magistracie", which controlled, among other dispensations, the use of Slavery as a form of strictly limited punishment (see Crime and Punishment). As befitted the time of its writing, there was no monarchy. The Law of Freedom is essentially unnarrated, but has remained influential. [JC]

Gerrard Winstanley

born Wigan, Lancaster: October 1609

died St Giles-in-the-Fields, Middlesex [now London]: 10 September 1676

works (selected)

• The Law of Freedom in a Platform: Or True Magistracie Restored: Humbly Presented to Oliver Cromwel, General of the Common-wealths Army in England, Scotland, and Ireland: And to all English-men my Brethren Whether in Church-fellowship, or Not in Church-fellowship, both Sorts Walking as they Conceive According to the Order of the Gospel: And from Them to All the Nations in the World: Wherein is Declared, What Is Kingly Government, and What is Commonwealths Government (London: Printed for the author, and to be sold by Giles Calvert, 1652) [binding unknown/]

about the author

• Marie Louise Berneri. Journey Through Utopia (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950) [nonfiction: pp 145-173: hb/uncredited]

links

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 10:02 am on 21 April 2026.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/winstanley_gerrard>