Wandsworth is unfortunately associated with but few important historic memories, but towards the end of the seventeenth century many French Protestants, who had fled to England after the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, took refuge in it, and in the Huguenots' cemetery, just outside the town on the way to Clapham, are several tombstones marking their burial-places. Later, the exiled Voltaire was for three years the guest at Wandsworth, in a mansion now destroyed, of Sir Everard Fawkener; and the famous novelist, George Eliot, lived for some time in a house in Southfields, still distinguished by a vine growing on it planted by her. In 1792 was founded in the neighbouring hamlet of Garratt, now absorbed in Wandsworth, the club for checking encroachments on the common, that for several years enjoyed some little fame through the addresses of the candidates for election having been written by the witty dramatist, Samuel Foote, who made the Mayor of Garratt the hero of a popular comedy, the great actor, David Garrick, and the versatile patriot, John Wilkes. Through the instrumentality of this gifted trio a purely local question was turned to account to bring forcibly before the public the abuses that attended the election of members of Parliament, but unfortunately the Garratt ceremony degenerated by degrees into an occasion for mob meetings characterised by riotous behaviour, the candidates being chosen, not on account of their fitness for the dignity to be {174} conferred on them, but for some accidental reason, such as a personal deformity or a caustic wit. The rowdy scenes that took place at these mock elections were immortalised in a series of clever etchings by the celebrated mezzotint engraver, Valentine Green, and the names of Sir John Harper, Sir Jeffrey Dunstan, and Sir Harry Dunstable, none of whom had any right to the titles they assumed, are still remembered as 'mayors' who successively held office. In 1796 the elections were suppressed, and the Garratt Club ceased to exist, but early in the nineteenth century the work it had inaugurated was completed by the purchase for the public of all that was still left of the once vast Wandsworth Common. [Sidenote: Putney]