Hello Listers,
I have a 3 part question, referring to County Tyrone in the late 18th - early 19th century:

1. Does anybody know if it was a common practice for Irish members of the British Royal Army/Military to be given incentives such as land for their service?
2. Was it a common practice for the oldest son to inherit all of the land that a father owned, if the father owned land?
   And 3. If 1 and 2 are so, did that make it more common for younger sons who would not inherit land to join the military in order to get land?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Katherine Quigley

Katherine,

No. Someone in the army would not have acquired land that way in the 18th & 19th centuries.  It did happen in the 17th century, but by the 1700s all the land was already owned by someone, and there was no spare land to give out even if they had wanted to. Shortage of spare land in Ireland was one of the many factors behind peoples decision to migrate from Ireland in the 1700s and later.

The father did often leave his land to a son. Frequently the eldest but not always. I have seen plenty of exceptions. Most farms were too small to split, so the expectation was that it would all go to one son, and the others would have to make their own way in the world. Thus often leading to emigration. 

Few farmers actually owned their land. It was normally leased. The big landowners (who rarely, if ever, farmed themselves) preferred rental income to the capital raised from selling.  This meant that a farmer might work a farm for 30 years, gradually improving it and increasing it’s value, only to find that the rent increased because of his own efforts. A bit galling and another reason why folk emigrated to places where there was land available with the freehold. When a farmer left the farm to a son in Ireland, what he was leaving was the value of the unexpired portion of the lease plus all the seed, tools, animals, crops in the ground etc. But only very rarely did he have outright ownership of the land itself.  As the 1800s progressed, various changes were made to leasehold law, which meant that provided you paid your rent, a farmer could expect to stay on the property indefinitely. The landlord had to renew, and there were some caps on rent increases. So tenure was almost guaranteed (subject to rent being paid) but not outright ownership.

Where someone did have outright ownership of property, in Griffiths Valuation it normally appears as “in fee.” Or occasionally as “free” though this latter term tended to refer to someone with squatters rights for typically a small cottage or a bit of bog, rather than a whole farm.

In the aristocracy it was common for the eldest son to inherit the estate, and for younger sons to join the army or navy or become Ministers. The average farmer in Tyrone wasn’t aristocracy. And even in the aristocracy military service didn’t result in being granted land. You might get a pension at the end of service but not land.

 
Elwyn
On Monday, 18 January 2021, 23:53:01 GMT, Katherine Q via CoTyroneList cotyronelist@list.cotyroneireland.com wrote:

Hello Listers,
I have a 3 part question, referring to County Tyrone in the late 18th - early 19th century:

1. Does anybody know if it was a common practice for Irish members of the British Royal Army/Military to be given incentives such as land for their service?
2. Was it a common practice for the oldest son to inherit all of the land that a father owned, if the father owned land?
   And 3. If 1 and 2 are so, did that make it more common for younger sons who would not inherit land to join the military in order to get land?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Katherine Quigley

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This is extremely helpful!  Thank you very much for posting the question Katherine Quigley and Elwyn Soutter for the write-up.

Anjeannette Staley

From: Elwyn Soutter via CoTyroneList cotyronelist@list.cotyroneireland.com
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2021 6:54 PM
To: cotyronelist@list.cotyroneireland.com
Cc: Elwyn Soutter elwynsoutter@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: [CoTyroneMailingList] Re: Incentive/Land Ownership Question

Katherine,

No. Someone in the army would not have acquired land that way in the 18th & 19th centuries.  It did happen in the 17th century, but by the 1700s all the land was already owned by someone, and there was no spare land to give out even if they had wanted to. Shortage of spare land in Ireland was one of the many factors behind peoples decision to migrate from Ireland in the 1700s and later.

The father did often leave his land to a son. Frequently the eldest but not always. I have seen plenty of exceptions. Most farms were too small to split, so the expectation was that it would all go to one son, and the others would have to make their own way in the world. Thus often leading to emigration.

Few farmers actually owned their land. It was normally leased. The big landowners (who rarely, if ever, farmed themselves) preferred rental income to the capital raised from selling.  This meant that a farmer might work a farm for 30 years, gradually improving it and increasing it’s value, only to find that the rent increased because of his own efforts. A bit galling and another reason why folk emigrated to places where there was land available with the freehold. When a farmer left the farm to a son in Ireland, what he was leaving was the value of the unexpired portion of the lease plus all the seed, tools, animals, crops in the ground etc. But only very rarely did he have outright ownership of the land itself.  As the 1800s progressed, various changes were made to leasehold law, which meant that provided you paid your rent, a farmer could expect to stay on the property indefinitely. The landlord had to renew, and there were some caps on rent increases. So tenure was almost guaranteed (subject to rent being paid) but not outright ownership.

Where someone did have outright ownership of property, in Griffiths Valuation it normally appears as “in fee.” Or occasionally as “free” though this latter term tended to refer to someone with squatters rights for typically a small cottage or a bit of bog, rather than a whole farm.

In the aristocracy it was common for the eldest son to inherit the estate, and for younger sons to join the army or navy or become Ministers. The average farmer in Tyrone wasn’t aristocracy. And even in the aristocracy military service didn’t result in being granted land. You might get a pension at the end of service but not land.

Elwyn

On Monday, 18 January 2021, 23:53:01 GMT, Katherine Q via CoTyroneList <cotyronelist@list.cotyroneireland.com mailto:cotyronelist@list.cotyroneireland.com > wrote:

Hello Listers,

I have a 3 part question, referring to County Tyrone in the late 18th - early 19th century:

1. Does anybody know if it was a common practice for Irish members of the British Royal Army/Military to be given incentives such as land for their service?

2. Was it a common practice for the oldest son to inherit all of the land that a father owned, if the father owned land?

And 3. If 1 and 2 are so, did that make it more common for younger sons who would not inherit land to join the military in order to get land?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Katherine Quigley

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