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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
The Irish land act of 1881, it is generally agreed, was a victory for the Land League and Parnell, and nationalist policy with regard to the act and the attitude of southern tenants towards it have been many times subjected to detailed examination by historians of this period. In these analyses of the events of 1880–81, however, little reference is normally made to the part played by the different parties and interests in the north of the country. It is often assumed, for example, that the Ulster tenants held aloof from the campaign for reform, lending no more than occasional vocal support to the agitational efforts of tenants in the south and west. Indeed, they were later excoriated by William O'Brien, Michael Davitt and others not only for giving no support to the land movement but also for sabotaging Parnell's policy of testing the 1881 act by precipitately rushing into the land courts to take advantage of the new legislation: ‘that hard-fisted body of men, having done nothing themselves to win the act, thought of nothing but turning it to their own immediate use, and repudiating any solidarity with the southern and western rebels to whom they really owed it’. If, however, northern tenants were harshly judged by nationalist politicians in the years after 1881, the part played by the northern political parties in the history of the land bill has been either ignored or misunderstood by historians since that time. The Ulster liberals, for example, are rarely mentioned, the implication being that they made no contribution to the act even though it implemented almost exactly the programme on which they had been campaigning for much of the previous decade. The northern conservatives, on the other hand, are commonly seen as leading opponents of the bill, more intransigent than their party colleagues in the south, ‘quick to denounce any weakening of the opposition’ to reform, and ‘determined to keep the tory party up to the mark in defending the landlord interest’
page 327 note 1 O'Brien, William, Recollections (London, 1905), p. 322 Google Scholar. See also Davitt, Michael, The fall of feudalism in Ireland; or the story of the Land League revolution (London and New York, 1904), p. 332 Google Scholar; Healy, T. M., Letters and leaders of my day (2 vols, New York, 1929), i, 134 Google Scholar.
page 327 note 2 O'Day, Alan. The English face of Irish nationalism: Parnellite involvement in British politics, 1880–86 (Dublin, 1977), pp 97–8Google Scholar. See also Pomfret, J. E., The struggle for land in Ireland, 1800–1923 (Princeton, 1930), pp 160–61Google Scholar; Palmer, N. D., The Irish Land League crisis (New Haven, 1940), pp 251–7Google Scholar. One important exception to the general misunderstanding of Ulster conservative attitudes at this time is Cooke, A. B., ‘A conservative party leader in Ulster: Sir Stafford Northcote's diary of a visit to the province in October 1883’ in R.I.A. Proc., lxxv, sect. C, no. 4 (1975), pp 61–84 Google Scholar.
page 328 note 3 Kirkpatrick, R. W., ‘Origins and development of the land war in mid-Ulster, 1879–85’ in Lyons, F. S. L. and Hawkins, R. A. J. (eds), Ireland under the union…: essays in honour of T W Moody (Oxford, 1980), pp 201–35Google Scholar; Bew, Paul and Wright, Frank, ‘The agrarian opposition in Ulster politics, 1848–87’ in Clark, Samuel and Donnelly, James S. Jr (eds), Irish peasants: violence and political unrest, 1780–1914 (Manchester, 1983), pp 192–229 Google Scholar. See also Moody, T W., Davitt and Irish revolution, 1846–82 (Oxford, 1981), pp 424–5, 432–48Google Scholar.
page 328 note 4 Up to the end of January 1882, notices to have fair rents fixed had been served in respect of some 17 per cent of the holdings of above one acre in Connacht and 16.2 per cent of those in Ulster, leaving Connacht somewhat ahead of Ulster in its acceptance of the act. The figures for Munster and Leinster were 11.3 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively. See Return of the number of originating notices lodged in the court of the Irish land commission and in the civil bill courts of the counties up to and including the 28 th day of January 1882, p. 5 [C. 3123], H.C 1882, lv, 361.
page 328 note 5 Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish nation (London, 1938), pp 165, 188Google Scholar. See also Vincent, John, ‘Gladstone and Ireland’ in Proceedings of the British Academy, lxiii (1977), pp 209–11Google Scholar.
page 328 note 6 Forster to Gladstone, 7 May 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44157, f.127).
page 328 note 7 Wemyss Reid, T., Life of the Rt Hon. W. E. Forster (reprint, with intro. by Chancellor, V. E., Bath, 1970, of 3rd ed., 2 vols, London, 1888), ii, 243 Google Scholar; Chamberlain, Joseph, A political memoir, 1880–1892. ed. Howard, C. H. D. (London, 1953), p. 6Google Scholar.
page 329 note 8 Forster to Gladstone, 25 Oct. 1880 (Reid, Life ofForster, ii, 262).
page 329 note 9 In an address to the Irish electors of Bradford in April 1880 Forster had stated that ‘on the question of fixity of tenure, he could not undertake to vote for a measure of that sort’ but he was, he said, anxious to make the Bright clauses more effective and to give tenants greater security of tenure (Northern Whig (hereafter cited as N. W.), 3 May 1880).
page 329 note 10 Forster to Gladstone, 5 Nov. 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44157, f. 193). See also memorandum submitted by Forster to the cabinet, 15 Nov. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W V H. 17/2).
page 329 note 11 Cabinet memorandum on resolutions passed by the Land Tenure Reform Committee, 23 Nov. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W V H. 17/2). See also Lord Monck's memorandum on ‘Irish land tenure’, 24 Nov. 1880 (ibid.). Monck was an Irish liberal landlord and one of the leading members of the Land Tenure Reform Committee.
page 329 note 12 Report of her majesty's commissioners of inquiry into the working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, and the acts amending the same (hereafter cited as Bessborough report), p. 19 [C.2779], H.C. 1881, xviii, 1.
page 329 note 13 Preliminary report from her majesty's commissioners on agriculture, pp 7–9. 20–24 [C.2778], H.C. 1881, xv, 1.
page 329 note 14 Hammond, , Gladstone & the Irish nation, p. 189 Google Scholar; The diary of Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, 1880–1885, ed. Bahlman, D. W. R. (2 vols, Oxford, 1972), i, 93 Google Scholar.
page 330 note 15 Vincent, , ‘Gladstone & Ireland’, p. 215 Google Scholar.
page 330 note 16 The first draft of the land bill as explained by Gladstone to the cabinet contained provisions for fair rents and free sale but not for fixity of tenure ( Chamberlain, , Political memoir, p. 15 Google Scholar).
page 330 note 17 For a detailed examination of these developments in Ulster, see Thompson, Francis, ‘Land and politics in Ulster, 1868–1886’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Queen's University, Belfast, 1982), pp 435–96Google Scholar.
page 330 note 18 See Gladstone to Thomas Macknight, 1 Apr. 1880, in Macknight, Thomas, Ulster as it is, or twenty-eight years experience as an Irish editor (2 vols, London, 1896), i, 381Google Scholar.
page 330 note 19 Forster to Gladstone, 5 Nov. 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44157, f. 193).
page 331 note 20 Ulster liberal M.P.s’ memorial to Forster, 1 Dec. 1880 (ibid., Add. MS 44158, ff 7–8).
page 331 note 21 Forster to Gladstone, 2 Dec. 1880 (ibid., f. 3). See also Forster to Gladstone, 10 Jan. 1881 (ibid., f. 121); W. E. Forster, ‘Memorandum on the Irish land bill’, 27 Dec. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W.V.H. 17/2).
page 331 note 22 N.W., 22 Jan. 1881; Coleraine Constitution, 29 Jan. 1881.
page 331 note 23 N.W., 13 Jan. 1881. Other members of the government were subjected to similar pressure by the Ulster liberal representatitives. Sir William Harcourt, for example, was warned by one Ulster liberal early in 1881 that ‘unless the government meant to accept the three Fs they had better not legislate at all’ (R. B. O'Brien, The life of Charles Stewart Parnell, 1846–1891 (2 vols, London, 1898), i, 298).
page 331 note 24 Quoted in Ballymoney Free Press, 23 Dec. 1880.
page 331 note 25 Hammond, , Gladstone & the Irish nation, p. 217 Google Scholar.
page 331 note 26 George Shaw-Lefevre, ‘Memorandum on Irish land legislation, 3 Jan. 1881 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W.V.H. 17/2). See also Hamilton, Diary, i, 93–4.
page 331 note 27 Both the British and Irish tories regretted the failure of Gladstone's bill to do more in the way of promoting facilities for purchase. The Ulster tories wanted the state to advance the whole of the purchase money to the tenants. See, e.g., Coleraine Constitution, 30 Apr. 1881 Belfast Newsletter (hereafter cited as B.N.L.), 18 June 1881.
page 332 note 28 Quoted in Vincent, ‘Gladstone & Ireland’, p. 220. See also Gladstone to Forster, 7 Dec 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44158, f. 34); Hansard3, cclxiii, 289–90 (7 July 1881).
page 332 note 29 See Hammond, , Gladstone & the Irish nation, pp 185–7Google Scholar
page 332 note 30 Ibid., p. 167.
page 332 note 31 The resignation of the duke of Argyll from the government reflected the general unease at the principles of the bill among the whigs and other liberal members and supporters. The general committee of the National Liberal Federation accused a number of liberal M.P.s of trying to impede the progress of the bill at the committee stage by ‘proposing or supporting amendments calculated to strike at some of the vital principles of the bill’ while others weakened the government by abstaining (National Liberal Federation, 4th annual report (Birmingham, 1881), pp 13–18).
page 332 note 32 An increasing number of Ulster landlords had during the previous parliament come round to the view that an amendment of the 1870 land act was necessary to settle the question of leasehold tenant-right — that is, the question of tenant-right at the end of a lease — which had emerged as one of the main points of controversy and one of the main tenant grievances under the 1870 act in Ulster. See Thompson, ‘Land & politics in Ulster’, pp 218–23, 347–50.
page 332 note 33 The general election of 1880 not only underlined the damaging effect the land question was having on landed political influence in Ulster but brought into office a government pledged to introducing household suffrage in the counties. ‘Will the Irish landlords’, Barry O'Brien pointedly asked, ‘obtain better terms from a parliament elected under a new franchise than they are likely to receive from the existing assembly?’ (O'Brien to editor, 7 June 1881, in Land, 11 June 1881, p. 411). Many conservatives thought not and believed it was essential to settle the land question before this happened. See, e.g., Coleraine Constitution, 24 Apr., 1 May. 10 July 1880; Fermanagh Reporter, 10 June 1880.
page 333 note 34 Speech at Enniskillen (B.N.L., 1 Jan. 1881). See also Bessborough report, p. 19
page 333 note 35 Hansard 3, cclx, 892–4 (7 Apr 1881).
page 333 note 36 Ibid., cclxi, 1378–9 (26 May 1881).
page 333 note 37 Ibid., cclxiv, 532 (1 Aug. 1881).
page 333 note 38 Ibid., col. 258.
page 333 note 39 Ibid., col. 252. For Brigh's speech, see ibid., cclxi, 103 (9 May 1881).
page 334 note 40 ‘There will be no possibility to sell land until this new land bill becomes law’ (Earl of Charlemont to Hugh Boyle, n.d. (P.R.O.N.I., Charlemont papers, D.266/367/51)). See also speeches of Charles Lewis, conservative M.P for Deny city (Hansard 3, cclxi, 1386, 26 May 1881) and Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, conservative M.P for Coleraine (ibid., cclxiii, 307–8, 7 July 1881).
page 334 note 41 Hansard 3, cclx, 1166 (25 Apr. 1881).
page 334 note 42 W. E. Forster, ‘Memorandum on the Irish land bill’, 27 Dec. 1880(Bodl., Harcourt papers, W.V.H. 17/2).
page 334 note 43 Hansard 3. cclxii, 1839 (1 July 1881). See also ibid., cols 802–3 (17 June 1881); T P O'Connor, The Parnell movement; with a sketch of Irish parties from 1843 (London, 1886), pp 457–8.
page 334 note 44 Circular from Montgomery to his tenants, 10 Feb. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Montgomery papers, D.627/307a). For the belief that rents would not be seriously reduced, see also Montgomery to G. Ford, 15 Apr. 1881 (ibid., D.627/316); J. A. Pomeroy to Montgomery. 25 Apr. 1881 (ibid., D. 627/318); Earl of Charlemont to Hugh Boyle, 11 Apr. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Charlemont papers, D.266/367/37); Dun, Finlay, Landlords and tenants in Ireland (London, 1881), p. 262 Google Scholar; Montgomery, Hugh de F, Irish land and Irish rights (London, 1881), p. 24 Google Scholar.
page 334 note 45 B.N.L., 20 Oct. 1881.
page 334 note 46 Ibid., 18 Aug. 1881. See also Coleraine Constitution, 20 Aug. 1881: ‘we sincerely hope the measure may benefit the farmers of Ireland, though in this province it will not make much change’
page 335 note 47 B.N.L., 9 July 1881. See also ibid., 8, 9 Apr. 1881; Coleraine Constitution, 9 Apr., 7 May 1881.
page 335 note 48 For the division list see Hansard 3, cclxi, 928–32 (19 May 1881). The four who did not vote were Corry (Belfast), Bruce (Coleraine), Castlereagh (Down) and Crichton (Fermanagh). Corry afterwards issued a statement saying he was unavoidably absent from the division and would have voted for the second reading (B.N.L., 24 May 1881). Bruce explained that he was generally in favour of the bill but not in its original form (Coleraine Constitution, 28 May 1881). In fact Bruce and Crichton were the two Ulster members most consistently hostile to the measure during its course through the commons, Crichton being the only Ulster M.P who voted against clause 7, the rent-fixing clause and the clause generally acknowledged to be most important to Ulster.
page 335 note 49 B.N.L., 28 Apr. 1881.
page 335 note 50 See, e.g., speeches of Bruce (Hansard 3, cclx, 1879, 5 May 1881), Edward Macnaghten, conservative M.P for Co. Antrim (ibid., cclxi, 306, 317, 12 May 1881), Lewis (ibid., cols 1386–7, 26 May 1881). Under the bill as originally introduced if the landlord wanted to increase the rent of a holding he had to do so by giving notice to the tenant with the possible consequence of having to pay ten times the difference between the rent demanded and what the court decided was a fair rent, or having to pay the tenant the amount the selling value of his tenant-right was depreciated by the increase in rent. Gladstone eventually conceded the point allowing the landlord as well as the tenant access to the court. See B.N.L. 9 Apr., 20 June 1881.
page 335 note 51 Hansard 3, cclxiii, 1960–2 (26 July 1881); ibid., cclxiv, 773–93 (4 Aug. 1881); Sir Thomas Bateson to Lord Salisbury, 27 July 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).
page 335 note 52 See Coleraine Chronicle, 9 July 1881.
page 335 note 53 N.W., 1 July 1881; Ballymoney Free Press, 7 July 1881.
page 335 note 54 Hansard 3, cclxii, 364 (13 June 1881); N.W., 1, 14, 16 June 1881.
page 336 note 55 Hansard 3, cclxiii, 1956–9 (26 July 1881).
page 336 note 56 Ibid., cclxii, 734–7 (16 June 1881). ‘English-managed’ estates were estates on which the landlord had provided all the fixtures and improvements as was normally done in England. There were in fact very few such estates in Ireland.
page 336 note 57 Ibid., cclxi, 928–32 (19 May 1881).
page 336 note 58 The Irish Land Committee published three pamphlets on the three Fs, all of them extremely critical: Lord Dufferin on the three Fs (London and Dublin, Jan. 1881); Mr Gladstone and the three Fs (London and Dublin, Feb. 1881); Mr Bonamy Price on the three Fs (London and Dublin, Feb. 1881).
page 336 note 59 Cairns to Beaconsfield, 3 Dec. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire, Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ca/272).
page 336 note 60 Gibson to Beaconsfield, 9 Dec. 1880 (ibid., B/xxi/G/66). See also Gibson to Sir Stafford Northcote, 21 Dec. 1880 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B71/10).
page 337 note 61 Earl of Donoughmore to editor, n.d., in The Times, 12 Apr. 1881 See also Ion T Hamilton, conservative M.P for Co. Dublin, to editor, 11 Apr 1881 (ibid.).
page 337 note 62 Speech of marquis of Waterford (Hansard 3, cclxiv, 306, 1 Aug. 1881).
page 337 note 63 Earl of Limerick to Salisbury, 25 July 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).
page 337 note 64 Speech of marquis of Lansdowne (Hansard 3, cclxiv, 291–2, 1 Aug. 1881).
page 337 note 65 Speech of Edward Gibson (ibid., cclx, 1100,25 Apr 1881). See also speech of Col. A.L. Tottenham, conservative M.P for Co. Leitrim (ibid., cclx, 1364–90,28 Apr. 1881).
page 337 note 66 It is significant that even within Ulster it was the landlords in the strongest tenant-right areas who had been most ready to support reform. Those in the outer province where tenant-right existed only in a more attenuated form were slower to accept the demand for reform and showed least enthusiasm for the 1881 bill.
page 337 note 67 See, e.g., earl of Limerick to Salisbury, 25 July 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).
page 337 note 68 Donoughmore to Beaconsfield, 19 Dec. 1880(Hughenden Manor, Disraeli papers, B/xxi/D/287).
page 337 note 69 Hansard 3, cclx, 1373 (28 Apr. 1881).
page 338 note 70 ‘Do the landlords seriously think’, asked Barry O'Brien during the committee stage, ‘that a less extreme measure will ever again be proposed with any likelihood of its being generally accepted as a satisfactory solution of the Irish agrarian problem’ (O'Brien to editor 7 June 1881, in Land, 11 June 1881, p. 411). Gladstone made the same point during the debates in parliament (Hansard 3, eclxi, 606,16 May 1881). See also N. W., 20 June 1881.
page 338 note 71 See, e.g., speech of Edward Gibson (Hansard 3, cclx, 1103, 25 Apr. 1881); Lord Oranmore and Browne to Salisbury, 13 June 1881, 1 Aug. 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E); Earl of Limerick to Salisbury, 25 July 1881 (ibid.).
page 338 note 72 See. e.g., the hostile comments of Sir Stafford Northcote to Salisbury, 21 Nov. 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).
page 338 note 73 Hansard 3. cclxiv,301 (1 Aug. 1881). See also speech of earl of Dunraven (ibid., col. 332).
page 338 note 74 George, Henry, The Irish land question: what it involves and how alone it can be settled: an appeal to the Land Leaguers (London and Glasgow, 1881), p. 10 Google Scholar.
page 338 note 75 Heads of bill, 26 Jan. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Disraeli papers, B/xii/D/47 i); Moneypenny, W.F. and Buckle, G. E., The life of Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield (6 vols, London, 1910–20), vi, 510Google Scholar. The bill proposed to advance four-fifths of the purchase money to tenants as against the two-thirds allowed by the act of 1870.
page 339 note 76 Moneypenny, & Buckle, , Life of Disraeli, vi, 582 Google Scholar. See also Blake, Robert, Disraeli (London, 1966), pp 728–9Google Scholar.
page 339 note 77 Macknight, Ulster as it is, i, 397. See also Lord Cairns to Beaconsfield, 15 Dec 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ca/274): ‘I wish Northcote and Lowther had been, on their part, a little more forbearing in discounting the question. Their joke about the “three Fs” is not a good one, and does infinite harm in Ulster.’
page 339 note 78 Northcote to Edward Gibson, 23 Dec. 1880 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B71/11).
page 339 note 79 Beaconsfield to Salisbury. 27 Dec. 1880 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser E).
page 339 note 80 Land, 23 Apr. 1881, p. 242.
page 339 note 81 Lord Cairns to Beaconsfield, 11, 15 Dec. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire, Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ca/273, 274). See also Sir Stafford Northcote to Edward Gibson, 17 Oct. 1880 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B.71/7); Edward Gibson to Sir Stafford Northcote, 21 Dec. 1880 (ibid., T.2955/B.71/10).
page 339 note 82 Salisbury to Beaconsfield, 20 Dec. 1880 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser D). Salisbury's biographer states that Salisbury recognised from the first the hopelessness of championing a cause so defended’ ( Cecil, Lady Gwendolen, Life of Robert, marquis of Salisbury (4 vols, London, 1921–32), iii, 42–3Google Scholar).
page 339 note 83 Beaconsfield to Salisbury, 27 Dec. 1880 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E); Salisbury to Beaconsfield, 2 Jan. 1881 (ibid., Ser. D); Northcote to Salisbury, 15 Apr. 1881 (ibid., Ser E).
page 340 note 84 Relations between the Ulster tories and the party leaders in England were at rock bottom at this time, the Ulstermen holding the latter largely responsible for their losses in the election of 1880. Comments such as those of Gorst, Salisbury and others were matched by equally bitter comments by the Ulster tories about the leadership in England. See. e.g., B.N.L., 12 Dec. 1879, 14 Apr., 15 Dec. 1880.
page 340 note 85 Gorst to W. H. Smith, 14 July 1881, in O'Day, English face of Ir nationalism, p. 98.
page 340 note 86 Edward Gibson's diary, 13, 15 Aug. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/A1/1).
page 340 note 87 Ibid.
page 340 note 88 Copy of resolution of executive committee of Irish Land Committee, 16 Aug. 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).
page 340 note 89 Northcote to Edward Gibson, 29 Aug. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B71/15).