William Allen’s gift to Haywards Heath

                                         

Haywards Heath owes an immense debt to the heart for social renewal possessed by William Allen (1770-1843) who founded our America estate. London based Allen was a man of many parts, a scientist and pharmacist, educationalist and prison reformer, pacifist and slavery abolitionist. Lindfield drew his attention as a place to try out a social experiment in schooling and agriculture. He set up an industrial school for boys and girls in what is now Pelham Cottages and established a rural colony for agricultural workers off Gravelye Lane. In the 1820s the word ‘colony’ had association with ‘America’ and Allen’s project is kept in our memory by the street names off Bentswood’s America Lane in Haywards Heath.

The philanthropist William Allen and his work that impacted Lindfield and Bentswood is commemorated on one of the 77 panels of the tapestry illustrating the history of Quakerism from the 17th century to the present day. The Tapestry tours the world from its base in Kendal, Cumbria. Allen (1770-1843) was raised a Quaker with burning passion for justice. As a teenager, he gave up sugar in reaction to the slave trade and later worked with William Wilberforce and others to abolish the trade. It was his passion to improve the plight of agricultural workers that first brought him to Lindfield.

Concern to improve nutrition and diet of the poor motivated local philanthropist William Allen commemorated in Haywards Heath’s America Estate. In the early 19th century bad harvests made life tough for small holders. So many soldiers released after the Napoleonic Wars added to the numbers dependent on poor relief. Allen’s scheme for reducing poor relief in Lindfield involved providing housing, land, cows and pigs for labourers to build self sufficiency through moving their families the short distance to what is now Bentswood. To quote Allen, ‘in the multitude of things which harness the mind, the main object is the good of others’. 

One of the most famous inhabitants of Gravelye Lane - Willian Allen’s house still stands - our local benefactor was a man of many parts. Prior to setting up the nearby allotments Allen helped set up in 1815 a society to investigate the causes of juvenile delinquency. In Margaret Nicolle’s ‘William Allen’ we read his journal record: ‘Had a large meeting on the subject of the gangs of depredators from 9 to 12 years of age who infest the metropolis; they are estimated at from 600 to 700. Some of them have been capitally convicted at the Old Bailey, and received sentence of death’. 

Sussex author Charles Fleet described Lindfield in 1824 as ‘eaten up with pauperism’. Into this scenario philanthropist William Allen, supported by the Earl of Chichester and John Smith MP, acquired land to build the school that is now Pelham Cottages. The aim was to educate the children of agricultural labourers furthering their industry and independence. Allen writes of his personal involvement through regular visits: ‘I had three of the boys to tea this evening… showed them Saturn, the Moon, etc through the large telescope’. The young people gained from the knowledge and care of this enthusiastic scientist and philanthropist.

The Quaker philanthropist William Allen (1770-1843) chose Lindfield and then Bentswood in Haywards Heath for a grand social experiment: building a self-sufficient agricultural settlement. In his pamphlet ‘Colonies at Home’ he states ‘instead of encouraging emigration at enormous expense per head let the money be applied to the establishment of Colonies at Home and the increase of our national strength’. In the 1820s colonies evoked America and that became the name of the project which has left its mark on Haywards Heath with so many of our street names chosen to honour Allen’s benevolent venture.

In this passage from ‘William Allen’ by Margaret Nicolle we read Allen’s contemporary Christine Majolier’s ‘description of life at Gravelye, the cottage which Allen occupied when he stayed in Lindfield. His house was, she states, ever open to receive ‘all strangers who required his aid and protection. Men of all countries, Russians, Germans, Frenchmen, Swedes, Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, North American Indians, West Indians and many of the suffering sons of West Africa partaking of that hospitality, which he knew so well how to bestow without the least ostentation… many a stranger in a strange land has indeed found in him a true friend’.

The Brighton Herald (1852) describes a visit to Gravelye cottages in Haywards Heath’s America estate: ‘The mistress of the house - a good-looking woman - was busily engaged in drying her clothes surrounded by half a dozen children, who had just come from school; the woman was cheerful; the children happy; and there was that unmistakable air of comfort which bespeaks abundance. The wife opened the doors of the sleeping-rooms and the bed-hanging and bed-clothes were as white as snow. The husband showed me his woodhouse and piggery and garden - the latter full of fine fruit trees, planted chiefly by himself’.

How successful was Allen’s historic allotment scheme at Bentswood? In her biography of William Allen (1770-1843) Margaret Nicolle quotes the philanthropist writing in 1830: ‘My object in taking Gravelye Farm was to prove, by an experiment under the public eye, that it is possible to render the agricultural labourer independent of parish relief, even with his present very low wages, by letting him have a little land upon fair terms and directing him in the cultivation of it’. Some said lack of manure due to lack of cows and horses made for difficulty. Others judged the experiment a success socially and morally but not financially.

The populating of Haywards Heath began ten years before the railway’s arrival in 1841 with William Allen’s agricultural colony ‘America’ near Bents Wood. The philanthropist’s knowledge of nutrition helped him plan allotments to build self-sufficiency and empower agricultural workers from Lindfield. As Allen’s biographer Margaret Nicolle writes: ‘A gradual improvement in the economic situation and the development of alternative sources of work were as important, if not more so, in improving the position of the agricultural labourer as any allotment crop yields. But whatever the drawbacks, the allotments were a very real attempt to address the problems of the rural poor.