When access to Bushy Park in Richmond was withdrawn for local residents in the eighteenth century, a local shoemaker, Timothy Bennet, campaigned successfully to get it re-instated. Bennet threatened to take the Park Ranger, George Montagu-Dunk, the 2nd Earl of Halifax, to court if access for residents was not restored. He argued that local people … Read more
Although the writer Mary Hays is unknown to many today, she was an important early feminist, whose ideas were well ahead of her time. She lived in an era when women had few legal and social rights and their options were restricted by social convention. Born in 1759, Hay came from a family of religious … Read more
The story of William Cobbett is important both to Farnham, who celebrate him as their most famous son, and on a national and international level for his roles as a journalist, radical and political reformist. Born in Farnham in 1763, he was the son of a farmer and innkeeper. He was in the army between … Read more
