The two-volume Return of Owners of Land, 1873 is the first complete picture of the distribution of land in Great Britain since the 1086 Domesday Book. The 1873 Return is sometimes called the "Modern Domesday". It arose from the desire of the Victorian governing landed classes, many of whom sat in the House of Lords, to counter rising public clamour about what was considered the monopoly of land. Karl Marx, who had lived in London since 1849, published Das Kapital in 1867. It influenced European political thought, prompting the British Establishment to extinguish revolutionary sentiment in the United Kingdom. Exaggerations and false assertions had been made by opponents of the landed classes about the concentration of land ownership by a ruling elite, and reliable, independent data was needed to refute the attacks. The question was put in the House of Lords on 19 February 1872 by Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby to the Lord Privy Seal, "Whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps for ascertaining the number of proprietors of land and houses in the United Kingdom, with the quantity of land owned by each proprietor". The government was in agreement with the suggestion, and Lord Derby's question was a pre-arranged formality to begin the process. In 1872, the Local Government Board was ordered to compile a list of landowners from ratings records. One return was prepared for England and Wales, and separate returns were prepared for Scotland and Ireland. The Return lists holdings by size and estimated yearly rental of all holdings over one acre. It is laid out by county and landowner, with an identifying address for each landowner. For landowners with extensive, scattered holdings, the address may not correspond to the land's location and may be outside the county in question. The location of the land is not given. A comparison with the Domesday Book survey was made in the Return Explanatory Statement. The 1873 Return had inaccuracies, and a revised edition—The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland—was published in 1883 by John Bateman.
Publication
Lord Halifax accepted the case for the production of a Return, it was prepared by the Local Government Board, and was presented to both Houses of Parliament. The Return covers England and Wales, except for London—nearly 15,000 parishes, whose records had about 5,000,000 assessments. Instructions were issued to relevant parish officials in September 1872, and the last return was received over two years later. The first examination of the returns disclosed nearly 250,000 discrepancies, which were resolved by correspondence and other means of inquiry. All statements and information in the Return, except for owner addresses, were derived from rating valuation lists for assessments under the Poor Law and were already held by each parish. Wealthy householders and landowners paid a tax to maintain the roads, other features and chiefly to support the poor.
Format
The columns were headed from left to right: "Surname, Christian name, Acres, Rods, Perches, £s. Area is listed as A/R/P. A is acre. R is rood: a ploughing strip 220 yards long and wide. Four roods equal one acre. P is a square pole ; 40 square poles equal one rood. Rentals are in £ and s ; 20 shillings equal £1. The £s value relates to the land's gross estimated rental. Problems were encountered in defining the headings.
England and Wales
The Return was published in 1875 and sold for 10s 6d each in two leather-bound volumes as England and Wales : Return of Owners of Land, 1873; Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty; London, printed by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode. Printers to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. For her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1875.
Scotland
The Scottish Return was published in 1874 as "Scotland: Owners of Lands and Heritages 17 & 18 Vict., Cap. 91, 1872–3 Return: I: Of the name and address of every owner of one acre and upwards in extent with the estimated acreage and the annual value of the land and heritages of individual owners. And of the number of owners of less than one acre with the estimated aggregate acreage and annual value of the lands and heritage of such owners in each county II: A similar return for municipal boroughs containing more than 20,000 inhabitants. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty; Edinburgh: Printed by Murray and Gibb, printers to Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1874".
Ireland
In 1873, the Local Government Board for Ireland began to ascertain the number and names of owners of land of one acre or more. Clerks of the Poor Law unions were ordered to draw up lists of such people from the property valuation and rate books in their custody. The lists were returned to the Local Government Board by the end of 1875, arranged into counties, alphabetised, and published in 1876 in a 200-page edition as Return of Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards, in the Several Counties, Counties of Cities, and Counties of Towns in Ireland.
Popularity
Although the Return was published for a political reason, it became sought-after reading amongst society in general. John Bateman, in the preface to his 1883 work, summarised the situation:
Corrected and derivative editions
John Bateman FRGS published The Acre-Ocracy of England, based on the 1873 Return, in 1876. Bateman published a corrected and edited version of the 1873 Return, which differs significantly from the original, under the Harrison imprint in 1883. He listed the commonest sources of error in its preface. The fourth edition of his work was The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, A list of all owners of Three thousand acres and upwards, worth £3,000 a year; Also, one thousand three hundred owners of Two thousand acres and upwards, in England, Scotland, Ireland, & Wales, their acreage and income from Land, Culled from "The Modern Domesday Book". It was republished in 1971 by Leicester University Press, with text from the 1883 edition and an introduction by David Spring.
