Gerrard Winstanley - Brief Biography

Brief Biography

Gerrard Winstanley's early life is broadly unknown, however it is known that he was baptised in 1609 in the parish of Wigan, then part of the West Derby hundred of Lancashire, and that he was the son of an Edward Winstanley, mercer. His mother's identity remains unknown and he could have been born anywhere in the parish of Wigan. The parish of Wigan contained the townships of Abram, Aspull, Billinge-and-Winstanley, Dalton, Haigh, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Orrell, Pemberton, and Upholland, as well as Wigan itself.

He moved in 1630 to London, where he became an apprentice and ultimately, in 1638, a freeman of the Merchant Tailors' Company or guild. He married Susan King, the daughter of London surgeon William King, in 1639. The English Civil War, however, disrupted his business, and in 1643 he was made bankrupt. His father-in-law helped Winstanley move to Cobham, Surrey, where he initially worked as a cowherd.