LAND OWNERSHIP IN CHESHIRE IN 1873

The information in the following table is drawn from the survey of land ownership carried out in all counties in England in 1873 and published in 1875 by Her Majesties Stationery Office. There is a copy at the Cheshire County Record Office. At this time the census shows that the population of Cheshire was 56,1201. There were 502 parishes, with 110,449 inhabited houses. The survey of land ownership was initiated by Lord Derby to try to rebut the claim that land ownership was in the hands of a very small number of people. The result was a resounding defeat for Lord Derby's view. Cheshire was among the counties where the old gentry families maintained their position very strongly to the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. In this table, I have not included all those with more than 1000 acres but I have included entries for the gentry families discussed elsewhere on this site. Some of the land owners had land in other counties. In Cheshire, those with more than 10,000 acres were John Tollemache (25,380), the Duke of Westminster (15,001) the Marquess of Cholmondeley (16,842), Sir H. D. Broughton (13,832), and Lord Crewe (10,148).

There is a good discussion of this topic in The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine, published by Papermac in 1990, ISBN 0-333-65218-5. By 1873 some families were not in a good financial position because of the decline in farm incomes caused by imports of grain from North America and of meat from South America and Austalasia.  Estate land could not be sold as it was usually tied up in complex wills and trusts. The result was that the land owning families could own huge tracts of land but be in serious debt.  Eventually an Act of Parliament was passed to allow the break up of entailments and the sale of estate land.  The situation worsened in the last few decades of the 19th century and death duties contributed to the financial problems. The great sell off of land started in the 1880s and reached its climax in 1919.   The Times of London announced "England for Sale" as dozens of estates were put up for sale; it was the biggest exchange of ownership since the Dissolution of the Monasteries. By this stage there were also important social changes brought on by the Great War. Women had worked in industry in large numbers during the war and were not going to return to low paid work in service at the great houses. During the 19th century domestic service was the single biggest source of employment for women.