21
About this time also an application was made to the
Lord Chancellor to issue a writ for completing, by the
election of the freeholders of Essex, the necessary num-
ber of Verderers, one only being then living. The writ
was issued, and three new Verderers were appointed.
As soon as the new Verderers held their first
Court, the Corporation handed in a long string of
presentments against the unlawful enclosures in the
Forest, comprising something like 3000 acres.
The Bill appointing Commissioners had meanwhile
been proceeding through Parliament, and Mr. Charles
Wood, one of the Assistant Enclosure Commissioners,
Mr. J. W. Perry-Watlington, Mr. H. F. Barclay, and
Mr. John Locke were appointed the Commissioners.
Mr. Locke's name was not in the Bill as originally
introduced, but was added by the House.
An attempt was made in the next Session of Par-
liament, by Mr. Ayrton, to stop the legal proceedings
which the Corporation of London were then vigour-
ously prosecuting. The Corporation had to fight this
question before a Select Committee of the House of
Lords, which, whilst restraining all other legal proceed-
ings about Epping Forest until the Commissioners had
made their Report, allowed the hands of the Corpora-
tion to be free as far as the proceedings in Chancery
were concerned.
These proceedings came to an end on the 10th
November, 1874, when, after a hearing extending over