Patterns of Estate Management in East Yorkshire c 184o-c 1880 By BARBARA ENGLISH several different names, land agents, land stewards, estate agents, or bailiffs (although HE EAST RIDING of Yorkshire in the estate agents were often property salesmen, nineteenth century consisted of some and bailiffs were usually of inferior status). T 700,0o0 acres of farmland;' it was No one title became definitive. predominantly an agricultural county, with Some estates used large firms of agents, few towns and little industrial based in London, and some employed development.: By 1873 eleven men (with smaller firms, working from York or Hull, over IO, OOO acres each in the county) owned or the market towns of Beverley or Malton. 28 per cent of the land, a further 24 great The men at the head of both large and small landowners (3,oo0-IO, OOO acres) owned an firms were commonly surveyors, but some- additional I8 per cent, and 58 lesser land- times solicitors. Occasionally one man, owners (I, o00-3, ooo a cres) held 13 per cent. 3 working on his own account, had the The largest corporate owners in 1873 were oversight of estates belonging to several the Crown, Emanuel Hospital Westminster, different owners. Some estates had a full- i: the NE Railway Company, St John's Col- time resident agent, perhaps living in a lege, Cambridge, and the dean and chapter of purpose-built house with an office, near the York Minster. These individual landowners centre of the estate. The resident agent could and corporate owners had a sufficient be a trained surveyor, a man who had served number of tenants to warrant the employ- his time as a pupil in another estate office, a i ment of a manager, and this paper is practical farmer, or a relative, qualified or concerned with the different patterns of not. In addition to the previous categories, management found in the East Riding in the there was always a small number of land- middle years of the nineteenth century. 4 owners who preferred to manage their own Men who managed land were known by estates, with the aid of farm bailiffs. 5 'Actually 706,684; this acreage, takeu from the census and the SExamples of all tbese categories will be found below. The literature Ordnauce Survey, excluded wastes and commons (estimated at on land agents includes A M Carr-Saunders and P A Wilson, The. 4049 in 1873), woods, rivers, roads, canals, Crown property not Professions, I933, pp 194-2o8; E Hughes, 'Tbe Eighteenth Century let, churdwards, and other unrated property; Return ofOu,ners qf Estate Agent', in H A Cronne, T W Moody, D B Quinn, eds, Land, 1872-3, BPP 1874 [c. 1o971 LXXII, pt I, pp 9, i1-i2, 15. IC:ssays in British and Irish History, 1949, pp 185-99; G E Mingay, -"Altogether an agricultural district'; J Caird, English A,llricuhure in 'Estate Management in Eighteenth-Century Kent', Ag Hist Rev IV, 185o--1, 1852, p 3o2. I956, pp 1o8-13; D Spring, 'Agents to the Earls of Durham in the .]Return o.fOwners of Land, 1872-3, BPP 1874 [c. 10971 LXXII, pt II, Nineteenth Century', Durham Unit, j LIV, I962, pp IO4-13; D and J Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, Spring, The English Landed Estate in the Nineteenth Centur),: its 1883. I bave corrected the obvious faults in the Return, such as tile Adntinistration, Baltimore, 1963; F M L Thompson, English Landed double entry for 'Quintin, St' and 'St Quintin'. The return of i873, Society in the Nineteenth Century, 1963; J O Parker, The Oxley although flawed, provided the first available figures for size and Parker Papers, Colchester, 1964; W Gavin, Ninety Years of Family value of landholdings, but in Strickland's survey of 1812 he Farming, 1967; F M L Thompson, Chartered Surveyors, 1968; F Hill, remarked that there were 9 or 11 great landowners in the East 'Squire and Parson in early Victorian Lincolnshire', History LVIII, P,iding, with rent rolls of about £Io,ooo each: H E Strickland, A 1973, pp 337-4-9; P Eden, Dictionary of Land Surveyors . General View of the Agricuhure qf the East Riding, 1812. Although tile 153ff-..1850 , Folkestone, I975-79; P Roebuck, Constable of Evering. list of z l families of i812 was not the same as the list of I873, the ham Estate Correspondence 1726--43, Yorks Arch Soc Record Series number remained the same. CXXXVI, 1976; RJ Colyer, 'The Land Agent in Nineteenth- 4Tile research on which tiffs paper was founded was financed by the Century Wales', Welsh Hist Rev VIII, I977, pp 4oi-25; j A F SSRC. I am grateful to my colleagues Jan Crowther, Alan Harris, Watson, Savills. A Family and a Firm 165e-1977, 1977; G Firth, 'The David Neave, Michael Turner, and John Saville for helpful Roles of a West Riding Land Steward, t773-18o3', Yorks Archj LI, comments on tile paper, and to the archivists of the City of Hull, 1979, pp IO5-15; E Richards, 'The Land Agent', in G E Mingay, tbe University of Hull, Humberside County Record Office, York ed, The Victorian Countryside 2, 1981, pp 439-55; P Horn, 'An Minster Library, and the Guildhall, London, for advice on archives Eighteenth-Century Land Agent: The Career of Nathaniel Kent in their custody. (1737-181o)', Ag Hist Rev XXX, 1982, pp 1-16. 29 3 ° THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW Further research will be needed to see if the I84Os. There were more of them (fewer generalizations that emerge from this study landowners managed their own estates, so of East Yorkshire are valid for other parts of that both firms of agents and resident agent England. The first conclusion is concerned benefited), but the percentage of the county with the importance of the firms of land administered by resident land agents rose by agents, both national and local. The land less than one per cent between 1873 and 1893. agent is often thought of as a surrogate Both the structure of management and the landowner, living on the estate as a country managers them selves continued to represent gentleman, and closely identified with the the personal preference ofthelandowner. By interests of his employer, whose deputy he the end of the nineteenth century most was. But in the last third of the nineteenth professions had succeeded in establishing a century the majority of the estates of more system which excluded outsiders; but land than Iooo acres in East Yorkshire were agency remained an open profession: the managed, not by resident land agents, but in Land Agents' Society was not formed until other ways, and in particular by firms, either 19o2, and as late as 1922 the Society itself from London or from a provincial office. supported the freedom of the owner to Most of the firms of agents were founded in employ whom he chose as his agent (whether the nineteenth century. The partners were qualified or not). 6 usually surveyors; but it was their corporate range of experience in different parts of the II country that made them more akin to The following table illustrates a number of members of a profession than the compara- patterns of land agency in the East Riding in tively isolated resident agent. So to the extent the middle years of the nineteenth century; it that firms of agents replaced resident agents includes all the estates over Io,ooo acres, and in East Yorkshire (see Tables i and 2), it samples from smaller and institutional might appear that there was a slow move- estates. The samples have been chosen, not at ment towards a greater professionalism. random, but because of the availability of The second conclusion is that the resident their archives. agents in East Yorkshire do not appear to be ~'A M Carr-Saundersand P A Wilson, The Profi'ssions, 1933, p 207. more professionally qualified at the end of Tile Land Agents' Society was re-absorbed into tile Royal the nineteenth century than they were in the institutionof Chartered Surveyors in x97o. TABLE I East Yorkshire Patterns of Estate Management, c I84O-c 188o Name of family, E Riding acreage and estate 1841 1851 1861 1871 ELEVEN PRINCIPAL LANDOWNERS Sykes land agent I ~ land agent 2 land agents 3, 4 34,olo acres resident resident 5,6,7,6,8 Sledmere resident (I869-8o) Londesborough (estate bought I85I) no agent* land agent I 33,oo6 acres Londesborough Cholmley/Strickland land agent I solicitor + no agent* no agent* 2o,5o3 acres resident Beverley firm Howsham, etc of agents ESTATE MANAGEMENT IN EAST YORKSHIRE 3 r Table I (continued) Name of family, E Riding acreage and estate 1841 1851 1861 1871 Wenlock land agent I land agent 2 I9,453 acres resident resident Escrick Hotham land agent I land agent 2 I8,682 acres resident resident South Dalton Harrison-Broadley no agent* Hull firm v I4,877 acres of agents Wehon Bethell land agent 1 land agent 2 land agent 3 I3,395 acres resident resident resident Rise IL. Leconfield London & York v I3,247 acres firm of agents Leconfield Middleton no agent* no agent* land agent I land agent 2 I2,294 acres resident but resident Birdsall in local firm Downe 110 agent* ilO agent* no agent* no agent* II,8I 7 acres Sherburn, etc Constable land agent I solicitor/cousin Hull firm of IO,981 acres non-resident + + Malton firm solicitors Burton Constable solicitor of agents SIX LESSER LANDOWNERS Herries land agent I land agent 2 land agent 3 6858 acres resident resident resident Everingham Yarburgh land agent i 5668 acres resident Hcslington Saltmarshe landowner 2776 acres Saltmarshc Sotheron-Estcourt Howdcn Wiltshire firm 1896 acres solicitor of solicitors Howdcn, ctc Scholfield landowner land agent lOO7 acres non-resident Sand Hall FOUR INSTITUTIONS The Crown Commrs of London firm I2,230 acres Woods & Forests of agents for Sunk Island, ctc (London) Crown Commrs Emanuel Hospital land agent I land agent 2 Westminster non-resident (son ofaFent I) 3179 acres non-resioent Brandesburton 32 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW Table 1 (continued) Name offfamily E Riding acreage and estate 1841 1851 1861 :871 St John's College land agent senior bursar Cambridge non-resident I996 acres various places Dean and Chapter York chapter clerk/ London firm chapter clerk/ t889 acres solicitor of agents for solicitor various places non-resident Eccl Commrs non resident Notes: Tile acreage of the estates is taken from Return qfOu,ners qfLamt, 1873.