Diggers. Small communistic groups, active in 1649–50, sometimes calling themselves True Levellers. Their prophet Gerrard Winstanley taught that God made the earth to be a common treasury; property and man's subjection to man were results of the Fall. The religious foundations of their beliefs range them nearer to contemporary millenarians than to modern Marxists or Maoists. But unlike the Fifth Monarchists they eschewed the use of force; their aim was not to dispossess landlords, robbers of their fellow-creatures though they were, but merely to assert the people's right to common land, and to lands recently confiscated by the Commonwealth. A pioneering group began digging the commons on St George's Hill (Surrey), in April 1649. The Council of State ordered General Fairfax to disperse them, but it was angry locals who finally destroyed their cabins and crops. They moved on to Cobham, but suffered the same fate. Some evidence survives of nine other short-lived Digger colonies, mainly in the home counties and midlands.

Austin Woolrych

Diggers ★★½ 2006 (R)

Four 30-something buddies face life-changing decisions in this modest slice-of-life drama. In 1976, Long Islanders Hunt (Rudd), Jack (Eldard), Cons (Hamilton), and Lozo (Marino) continue their families' tradition as clam diggers, but their livelihood is threatened by a corporate fishery that's buying up prime water rights. Hunt's dad has just died so maybe he should finally move on but he's worried when lothario Jack starts sniffing around his divorced sister, Gina (Tierney). Meanwhile, Cons supplements his earnings dealing pot (although smoking most of it), and Lozo's large and increasing family strains his marriage and his temper. Charming and poignant despite its well-worn premise of breaking out of smalltown workingclass life. 90m/C DVD . US Paul Rudd, Ron Eldard, Josh Hamilton, Ken Marino, Lauren Ambrose, Maura Tierney, Sarah Paulson; D: Katherine Dieckmann; C: Michael McDonough; M: David Mansfield.

Diggers (1649–50) English millenarian social and religious sect in England, an extreme group of the Levellers. They formed an egalitarian agrarian community at St George's Hill, Surrey. It was destroyed by local farmers. The main Digger theorist, Gerrard Winstanley, proposed communalization of property to establish social equality in Law of Freedom (1652).

Diggers. A radical expression of the mid-17th-cent. Leveller movement, whose adherents described themselves as ‘True Levellers’. Inspired by the leadership of Gerard Winstanley and William Everard, the Diggers formed communal settlements, dug and sowed common land in several English counties (1649–50), vigorously maintaining that the earth was a common treasury.