The Portora School-Lands: A Study in Estate Management in Nineteenth-Century Fermanagh

Brian MacDonald

doi:10.2307/27699388

The Courtown Land Agents and Transnational Estate Management, 1850–1900

The Land Agent ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438865.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 93-108

Author(s):

Rachel Murphy

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Financial Situation ◽

Management Structure ◽

Victorian Period ◽

Estate Management

The nature of estate agencies across the four nations during the nineteenth century varied depending on the size and location of the estate, and the financial situation of the landlord. In short, just as estates were not homogenous, neither were the agencies that managed them. This chapter considers the management structure of a transnational estate during the second half of the nineteenth century, using the Courtown estate as a case study. It examines the roles of the agents, sub-agents and bailiffs employed on the estate during this period. It is hoped that the study will enable comparison with other estates within the four nations, leading to a deeper understanding of the role of the land agent during the Victorian period.

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Lord Seaforth and Highland estate management in the First Phase of Clearance (1783–1815)

The Scottish Historical Review ◽

10.3366/shr.2007.0044 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 86 (1) ◽

pp. 50-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Finlay McKichan

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Political Economy ◽

Political Influence ◽

Management Policy ◽

Final Part ◽

Financial Benefits ◽

Estate Management

Professor Allan Macinnes coined the phrase and defined ‘The First Phase of Clearance’. He argued that in this period chiefs embraced wholeheartedly the Whig concept of progress and deliberately subordinated, if not threw over, their personal obligations as patrons and protectors of their clansmen and that a result was a gradual but inexorable re-orientation of estates towards the market at the expense of clanship. This article is a case study of First Phase Clearance based on the proprietorship of Francis Humberston Mackenzie of the Seaforth estate in mainland Ross-shire and Lewis. It argues that he was slower than other proprietors in abandoning traditional attitudes and in following the dictates of political economy. It shows that customary, political and commercial pressures pulled him in different directions, which led to ambiguities and contradictions in his policies. In the first part of the article the importance for him of customary concerns, traditional attitudes and political influence and the implications for estate management are examined. However, he also wanted to enjoy the financial benefits of commercialisation and in some respects he undoubtedly acted commercially. This is considered in the second part. The consequences of these competing pressures are discussed in the final part. The article concludes that, while Seaforth reflects many of the characteristics associated with First Phase Clearance proprietors, his estate management policy does not display inexorable adoption of commercialism, but rather confusion and inconsistency under pressure. This was to the detriment of his own interests and those of his family and began the process by which in the nineteenth century most of the Seaforth estate was sold.

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Palmerston’s Conquest of Sligo

Nature and the Environment in Nineteenth-Century Ireland ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781789620320.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 35-54

Author(s):

David Brown

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Scientific Understanding ◽

Estate Management

This chapter discusses the estates of Lord Palmerston in Sligo during the mid-nineteenth century with a view to examining the ways in which a need or desire to ‘conquer’ nature shaped plans to improve land and, by extension, the condition of tenants on that land, blending economic and political ambitions with environmental and scientific understanding. This study of estate management, by an absentee landlord, examines Palmerston’s career as an Irish landlord afresh and, borrowing the idea of a ‘conquest of nature’, reflects on the ways in which the Irish landscape was, and could be, understood or regarded by this particular Victorian politician and how this might contribute to debates about nature and its management.

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