Ulrich Niggemann

The area of the Fens extends around the bay of The Wash, i.e. mainly the coastal regions in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. These are extensive wetlands, some of which were flooded from the sea, i.e. salt marshes, but some of which were also created by the backwater of the relevant rivers, such as the Witham, the Welland, the Nene or the Great Ouse. The land is very low, in some places below sea level, so that there is no gradient for natural drainage. The area was not marshy all year round but could be used for grazing in the summer. Small areas were elevated and formed islands, so to speak, which were used early on for the establishment of monasteries, villages or small market towns - such as Kings Lynn, Wisbech and Spalding and, very importantly, the cathedral city and bishop's see of Ely.
As early as the reigns of Elizabeth I from 1558 and James I from 1603, there were isolated initiatives and considerations to drain land. Some of these initiatives came from local nobles, such as the Earls of Bedford, who had acquired land here in the course of the Reformation and the secularization of church estates. However, it was only under Charles I that the ideas became more concrete, particularly with the appointment of the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden. Vermuyden was probably involved in the drainage measures at Hatfield Chase, a royal hunting ground near the Isle of Axholm in Lincolnshire. Later, in the aftermath of the Revolution and the Civil Wars of the 1640s, Vermuyden was apparently also involved in the draining of Bedford Level in the Isle of Ely area. Vermuyden brought Dutch Protestants from the Spanish Netherlands to England. They were initially employed as laborers digging drainage channels and constructing sluice systems before being rewarded with drained plots of land, usually on a generous leasehold system. Dutch workers and colonists were involved in drainage projects throughout the Fens, hence names such as Holland Fen, South Holland, etc.
The drainage measures were only successful to a very limited extent. Several technical problems stood in the way of permanent drainage: on the one hand, there was still a lack of effective pumping systems to get the water out of the low-lying land - windmills were already being used in some cases, for example in the Netherlands, but were still rare and expensive as pumps in England. On the other hand, drainage caused the land to sink further. These were peaty soils that shrank like sponges as they dried. However, the further subsidence led to an even greater risk of flooding, so that in the second half of the 17th century, a large part of the areas drained by Vermuyden were waterlogged again.
And finally, the massive resistance must also be pointed out. The Fenland region was by no means uninhabited. The supposed vacuum domicilium was inhabited and was also used. In the State Papers, which are kept in the National Archives in London, there are documents relating to the unrest in the Fens - in particular the enormously interesting report of a commission commissioned by Cromwell's Council of State to investigate several incidents in Hatfield Level in Lincolnshire. Here, in the parish of Sandtoft, Walloon settlers had been the victims of massive attacks. What at first glance appears to be xenophobic resentment turns out on closer inspection to be a complex dispute over the use of the Fens. This certainly does not rule out xenophobic aspects in principle - they may well have been part of the existing aggression of the Fenland residents. At the heart of the dispute, however, was the rejection of the drainage project. John Wildman, who had also been active in the Leveller movement, became involved as a spokesman for the Fen residents. In several petitions and pamphlets, he and others argued that the Fens were common land whose use had always been granted to the local population, i.e. by customary law.
Contrary to what the projectors, i.e. the proponents of reclamation, claimed, the land was by no means unused land, but was used for cattle breeding, peat and reed extraction, fishing and waterfowl hunting. In particular, the commercialization of agriculture, which was already pointing to the agricultural revolution that began somewhat later and was also aimed at commercially usable plants - such as rapeseed and other oil plants as well as dye plants for the textile industry - was rejected: “What are coal-seed and rape, they are but Dutch commodities and trash and trumpery”, according to the pamphlet “The Anti-Projector”.
This clearly shows a defence directed against innovations, i.e. against newly introduced crops and against a devaluation of the previous way of life and economy in the Fens. The fact that the “Dutch commodities” also refer to the foreignness of the products indicates that resistance to the new and resistance to the foreign went hand in hand. What is striking when reading these and other testimonies is that not all drainage was rejected in principle. There were well-established systems that were in local hands and were supported by everyone, for example in the local commissions of sewers, which were responsible for monitoring the drainage channels on behalf of the communities. For a differentiated view, it is therefore necessary to take these established procedures into account and to generally consider the different perceptions and interpretations of the Fens, without losing sight of the divergent and sometimes contradictory interests in each case.
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References:
Ash, E. H., The Draining of the Fens. Projectors, Popular Politics, and State Building in Early Modern England, Baltimore 2016.
Boyce, J., Imperial Mud. The Fight for the Fens, London 2020.
Darby, H. C., The Draining of the Fens, Cambridge 1968.
Lindley, K., Fenland Riots and the English Revolution, London 1982.
Simmons, I. G., Fen and Sea. The Landscapes of South-East Lincolnshire AD 500-1700, Havertown 2022.

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