A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (2018)

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Sduddy
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A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (2018)

Post by Sduddy » Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:34 pm

‘The Archives of the Valuation of Ireland, 1830-1865’, by Frances McGee (Four Courts Press, 2018), was given to me as a Christmas present – by someone who knows me well – and I’ve been reading through it very quickly to see what it’s all about - before going back and reading it more carefully. There are good reviews online, but they are brief. And they don’t mention some of the information that was new to me – and which may be of interest to others.
McGee explains that the Griffith’s Valuation that we see online is just the tip of the iceberg. What we don’t see is the huge amount of documentation, mostly in the form of series of books and maps, which went into the making of that Primary Valuation. These are held in the National Archives of Ireland, and McGee, having lived with these books (she was an archivist in the National Archives for 40 years), knows them well and is in a good position to explain to researchers what’s to be found in each series of books. One thing I’d known, but never appreciated, is the span of time involved in the making of the Valuation. There’s a span of a quarter of a century. So, while the end product is just a snapshot in time (1850s), the notes made by the valuators, in the years leading up to the 1850s, give an idea of what a locality was like in pre-famine times. McGee understands very well that most people looking at Griffith’s Valuation are not interested in the system of valuing land (the bit Richard Griffith himself was most proud of) but, rather, in genealogy, or in local history. She gives several instances of interesting notes made by the Valuators, sometimes about a locality – sometimes about people. She believes the books are an under-used resource and that they will repay investigation (Field Books, House Books, Mill Books, etc.). She stresses, again and again, that the Primary Valuation (the final product we see online) is shorn of much of the detail noted by the Valuators.

The Valuation was done by Barony, but the townland was the basic unit, and the books were made townland by townland and parish by parish, which is a comforting thought. However, accessing them is not as easy as accessing the Primary Valuation books in the Valuation office in Lr. Abbey Street. There you can just arrive and go to the desk and say what townland you are interested in and, when you get the books for that townland, you also get some help (from a real human being) on how the books work. But in the National Archives you must first apply for a reader’s ticket and then you need to know exactly what you are looking for. McGee gives a lot of guidance – she gives the various references for the different kinds of books (e.g. Tenement Valuation original field books (OL/4)), which is a good help. But some examples she gives, throughout the book, show that you need more than that. For instance, the reference for one example (p 85) from one of the Quarto* books (Thomas Sweeney, holding a public house, with a bad yard, but good situation, not paying rent) is, “Quarto book, Dunboyne, Co. Meath, OL/7/40 (1840)”.

*McGee explains what the Quarto books are and I quote her here just to show how clearly and how sincerely she goes about explaining and guiding:
"The Quarto books are manuscript notebooks relating to the valuation of houses in towns. The National Archives holds all the quarto books for towns in the Republic of Ireland and one book for Belfast. These books were made between 1838 and 1853 in conjunction wth the other valuation work in each county, under both the Townland Valuation and Tenement Valuation. Some quarto books are present for most counties, except Leitrim and Sligo, and there is only one book in Monaghan. There are books for the cities of Cork, Galway and Waterford but none for Dublin and Limerick. Several small towns may be grouped together in a single quarto book while large towns may take several books. The quarto books were made once for each town. In general the quarto books have a distinctive appearance. They are approximately square, which may explain the term ‘quarto’ and many have marbled paper covers".

McGee appends a useful chart, showing which books have survived for each county.
For County Clare, the books that have survived are Field books, House books, Quarto book, Mill book, List book, Tenure book, Appeal book (1846).

Now here is something that puzzles me: McGee says the Valuation we see online (called the Primary Valuation) was published and widely circulated (each barony had its own book) so that the people concerned could check it and appeal the decisions contained in it, if they so wished. In fact, a model appeal form was included in each book. An appeal system was set up in 1846, which proved unwieldy, as there were thousands of appeals. McGee says that the books of appeals are probably the most interesting of all the books. As you might expect, the most common complaint was that the tenement had been valued at too high a rate, but there were also complaints about the number of acres – many people still thought of their farms in terms of Irish acres, and did not realize that the acres in the book were statute acres. What makes the appeals interesting is that many of them were referred to the Assizes and the testimony given, by the various parties, was taken down as it was spoken. This system of appeal became impossible to manage, because of the numbers and length of time involved, so in 1852 a new, more straightforward system of addressing problems was introduced and less evidence was required. The post-1852 appeal books for Clare have not survived, but some 1846 appeal books have survived, and, luckily, they seem more interesting than the later ones. The appeals led to a revision of the Primary Valuation and the revised version was copied into what are known as the “Cancelled Books” – these are the books held in the Valuation Office in Lr. Abbey Street, Dublin. If I have understood McGee correctly, it would seem that the information in those books, in some instances, differs somewhat from the Primary Valuation that we see online on askaboutireland.ie. What puzzles me is that the date of publication given online is 1855 (for Co. Clare).

Another thing that puzzles me is that the striping of land is mentioned only once – in connection with Mayo (p 182), where it led, understandably, to some appeals. Surely, these changes to farm boundaries happened all over Ireland and must have been a huge, huge social change, and very difficult for people to adapt to.

There are not many mentions of Clare, but, in the piece on House books, which McGee thinks are worth examining by genealogists because the occupiers are named, there is a mention of Ennistimon: “The book for Ennistimon, Co. Clare (1845) lists in Church Street a cart maker, several shoemakers, three dyers and Mr Curran who ‘carries on the salt manufactory’, in Parliament street a butcher, a grocer, a physician and an apothecary and in New Town ‘Mr Barry is a Nailor’. Public houses are found throughout the House books”.
There is also a mention of Scarriff (p 142), in the chapter on the Primary Valuation. In the course explaining that, from 1852, in the case of herdsmens’ houses, stewards’ houses, caretakers’ houses, etc., the policy was to name the immediate lessor, rather than the occupier, McGee goes on to say that other occupiers were edited out also, and she gives the example of Scarriff, where Revd Alex P. Hanlon is listed as the occupier of ‘nine labourers’ houses’. “And in Aughinish, Ogonnelloe, Simon G. Purdon … who was landlord of most of the parish, is listed as the occupier of a lot consisting of cottiers’ houses and woods. The persons who lived in these houses were not named in the Primary Valuation”.

There’s an interesting chapter on the Valuators, many of whom can be named because they signed their work. McGee says that one set of names not included anywhere are those of the labourers who were engaged locally to help with the work of digging soil samples, etc. They were all temporary workers, and were dismissed when the team moved to a new locality.

McGee explains that some of the complexity of the documentation in the archives arises from the introduction of Poor Law to Ireland in the late 1830s. This happened some years after Griffith's Valuation had been embarked upon. The Poor Law Unions (and Poor Houses) were to be financed by a property tax, known as the poor rate, which was based on the valuation of individual tenements. As Griffith’s Valuation was, at this stage, a townland valuation, which was to decide the rate of County Cess applicable to it, the Poor Law guardians proceeded to set up their own valuation. This led to confusion and complaints. A report by a select committee “found that Townland Valuation could not be used for poor rates and Poor Law Valuation could not be used for county cess”. Eventually, after some caving in by Richard Griffith, who did not cave in easily, the problems were ironed out and work on tenement valuation was begun by Griffith. This meant that work already done needed to be revised – and so there is documentation for both original and revised work.
Indeed, throughout the period of valuation there were several changes made to the requirements by central Government. All the maps used by the Valuators were copies of the 6 inch Ordnance Survey map (1842), but, for economy, some were used over and over. The Valuators did not date the changes they made to maps, but used different coloured ink to denote changes. McGee says that if they are consulted in conjunction with the books, they make sense, but I don’t think that I, myself, will ever put that to the test.

I was really surprised at the pains that were taken in deciding the value of a farm. The value did not rest simply on the quality of the soil, but on the proximity to the road and to the market, along with various other factors. In the Appeals, one farmer pleaded that he could not put his horned cattle, but only sheep, on his mountain land and this was taken into consideration and the rate reduced. As for the valuation of Mills, the instructions to Valuators required them to note “the number of days worked in the year in the mill, the length of the working day, along with measurements of water wheels, the number of float boards and the velocity of the water, the number and type of millstones and other machinery, as these affected commercial operation”. No wonder the Valuation took so long to complete.

Here’s another interesting bit: the books and maps are in very good preservation order, having been kept in the original office in Ely Place right up to 1998, where there was a specially fitted out room with shelves made just the right height for the books (arranged by county) and drawers wide enough for the maps. Very little, therefore, was destroyed in the fire in the Public Records Office in 1922. But I was amazed to read that large fires were kept lighting in Ely Place. This was to keep mould and damp from destroying the books, but surely a great hazard in itself!

There’s loads more of interest in this book.

Sheila

Lucille
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (201

Post by Lucille » Mon Dec 31, 2018 12:06 pm

Thanks Sheila for that recommendation and review. Definitely worth looking into.

Lucille

smcarberry
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (201

Post by smcarberry » Tue Jan 01, 2019 2:50 pm

This is good news indeed, and thanks for spreading the word, Sheila. I have a question and a few comments:

1. Does this book mention "perambulation" volumes ? I have seen that term used only once by an Irish researcher to describe a source for her records. Since "ambulation" refers to walking, I have been thinking that this is actually the Field Book series.

2. Using a commercial gen. service which I think is FindMyPast, I viewed the field books for my area of East Clare and found those useless as they seemed to focus on soil conditions. The same service had images to browse, for I think the House Book series, which I found virtually useless for my gen. research as the valuators were instructed to only assess property worth more than 5 pounds. As I saw throughout my section of Clare, this meant that the usual comment, except for the village of Tulla, was that the townland has no property worth at least that amount (except for the usual big houses of the estates). The breakdown of types of property per owner for village property was interesting but not helpful for my purposes. The date that I remember (my flashdrive containing this data has been lost) is 1848, repeatedly listed next to the valuator's signature on the various pages.

3. Knowing that these books can be accessed at the Valuation Office in Dublin is great, but, for those not able to get there, consult the film inventory of the Mormons.

4. The National Archives in Dublin has some of the valuation books, namely some Field Books, as shown in my inventory posted elsewhere on the Forum in a pdf file (to reach the full list of all Clare materials at NAI, use the search term "inventory" in the Forum search engine "Search" in the upper right corner of your screen). I have a screen shot of that Field Book section of my inventory but it cannot be uploaded here since I am still getting the missage "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached."

Sharon Carberry

murf
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (201

Post by murf » Tue Jan 01, 2019 9:47 pm

From the NAI website at http://census.nationalarchives.ie/searc ... _books.jsp
The Tenure Books are also known as Perambulation Books, as the staff ‘perambulated’ or walked around the boundaries of the tenements. ........... The National Archives holds all Tenure Books relating to the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland, with the exception of Queen’s County ...
I referred to the Tenure Books in a previous post at http://www.ourlibrary.ca/phpbb2/viewtop ... f=1&t=7019
Presumably, the small batch of Tenure Books that are online were provided as a sample of what is available at NAI in Dublin.
I consider myself fortunate that this sample includes some of my Murphy ancestors in the townland of Inishdea.

smcarberry
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (201

Post by smcarberry » Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:58 pm

Murf, you are spot on with that information. Thanks for the speedy posting. Yet another item goes on my "to do" list.

Resources for Irish genealogy continue to improve, at least on the national level. As ever, the Forum proves its usefulness for distribution of news about resources.

Sduddy
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (201

Post by Sduddy » Wed Jan 02, 2019 5:15 pm

Thanks for those replies which are most interesting, and helpful. I am not addressing the replies here - I just want to add a little to what I wrote above:

When Griffith started as commissioner of valuation, he understood his instructions to be to decide a valuation for land (and for houses) upon which the county cess (a tax) could be based and, in future, levied in a fairer way than hitherto. His objective was to create a standard, uniform valuation based on scientific methods, which would hold true for the whole country. At various times he quoted the Act under which he had been appointed, and he also got legal advice as to his compliance with that Act. He did not see his task as valuing each farm, or any house that was of so little value that it would have been previously overlooked for purposes of county cess (county cess had been in operation long before Griffith’s valuation began, but it had levied very unfairly, using old land measures that were now obsolete, or which differed widely throughout the country). His initial valuation was for each townland and it is called the Townland Valuation.

But problems arose, which McGee explains with a clarity that I could never match, so I will quote her here: “In the late 1830s, when the valuation seemed to be making progress, a complication arose when poor law was introduced in Ireland and the workhouse system, based at first on 130 poor law unions run by boards of guardians, was set up. The relief of the poor was financed by a property tax, known as the poor rate, which was based on a valuation of individual tenements. This valuation was carried out separately in each poor law union by locally appointed valuators, without central control beyond the requirements of the Poor Law Act and instructions from the poor law commissioner. It had no connection to the Townland Valuation. This led to confusion and complaints. In parts of the country where the Townland Valuation had been completed there were now two systems, based on different principles, and used as the bases of taxes collected by separate bodies” (p 31)

It is easy to imagine how torn Griffith was by all of this. He was very proud of his scientific method of valuing, and wanted nothing to do with the (very inferior, ad hoc) valuation that was being conducted under Poor Law and he condemned the Poor Law methods. Yet he could see that a tenement valuation was quite feasible by using the information already gathered for his own Townland Valuation, plus he could see the value of a tenement valuation. Also, a tenement valuation was not an entirely new concept – the Tithe Valuation (1823-1837) had been based on individual holdings. So (and I am probably oversimplifying) Griffith agreed to go back and do a Tenement Valuation for all those counties that had been completed. So the National Archives holds a double set of records – Townland Valuation records and Tenement Valuation records. Which is good news for Co. Clare, as it is one of the counties that has records for (1) the 1843-1848 period when the Townland Valuation was carried out, and (2) the 1850-1855 period when the Tenement Valuation was carried out. The other Munster counties of Limerick, Kerry, Cork, Tipperary and Waterford have only the Tenement Valuation.

McGee describes the work done in the Townland Valuation (p 38). The Valuator worked through each barony, parish by parish. He perambulated each townland. He did the soil sampling. And he did some calculation of square area on a copy of a map. And (here’s the important bit) “He wrote up information that was later used for reference, including a scale of prices, a list of the main landowners, a general account of the parish and notes on townlands, describing the land and the local circumstances”. It is in these notes made by the Valuators, who carried out the Townland Valuation, that we get glimpes of life in townlands in Ireland in the early 1840s. As I understand it, the Tenure books were created from 1844 forwards, not in the field, but rather than in the office, where information was copied into Tenure books, both old information from the Townland Valuation and new information on individual tenements from the Tenement Valuation, so that information on both valuations was neatly combined. But I think that some of the notes taken by the perambulators and valuators in the original fieldwork were discarded at this point, rather than copied - maybe the very kind of notes that we would find interesting now. So I think that if a researcher is going to the National Archives he/she should request “Townland Valuation original field books and check field books (OL/4)” for whichever parish they are interested in. (“OL” stands for “Oifig Luachala”, Irish for “Office of Valuation”).

About the house books, McGee says, “House books were used to record houses..... Houses likely to be near the threshold of £3 and £5 were recorded, but as most houses in rural areas did not meet this requirement, the numbers noted were small. In rural areas, qualifying houses were entered in the house books and marked on the field maps [*]. After 1836, houses in urban areas were usually recorded in separate house books and marked on town plans. Most houses in rural areas were omitted but most houses in towns were included because they were more valuable” (p 36). The books for rural areas are “Townland Valuation original house books and check house books (OL/5)” and the books for urban areas are “Valuation town plans (OL/12)”
*As I understand it, the ordnance survey map showed every house, so I reckon that the Valuator just singled out some of these as qualifying for valuation.

Going back to the Field Books, I think that, having read McGee, I now understand something that had puzzled me: Thomas Coffey’s History of the Parish of Inchicronan (Crusheen) (Ballinakella Press, Whitegate, Co. Clare. 1993), includes a chapter (9) entitled “O’Donovan’s Field Name Books” in which Coffey reproduces notes taken 1839-42 on each townland in Inchicronan (Crusheen), e.g. Scalpnagoon:
Proprietor: Augustine Butler Esq., Ballyline, Crusheen.
Agent: none.
Let to 26 occupying tenants, some have leases of lives, others none, who pay a yearly rent £100 for the whole townland. Co. cess from 3s to 3s 4d per acre. Tithes, 6d per acre. Soil, rocky mountain. Usual crops, oats and potatoes. Bog plenty.
Prevailing names: Lynch and Grady.
One fort in this townland.
Authority: Wm Stapleton Esq., Callura.

When I read this chapter, I was surprised at how much these notes differed from the letters that O’Donovan submitted to the Ordnance Survey Office (on the antiquities and mythologies he found in each parish) at that time. Now, having read McGee’s book, I think that these notes were not written by O’Donovan, but by a Valuator perambulating the townland in the company of a local gentleman or squire, and I think that they were submitted to the Valuation Office rather than to the Ordnance Survey (though both offices worked closely together).

And I think that the notes are interesting – for example the notes on Scalpnagoon show that there were Lynches and Gradys living there in 1840 – these Lynches and Gradys were gone by the time the Tenement Valuation was carried out in the 1850s - at least I don't see them in the Griffith's Primary Valuation online.
The notes on Crusheen Village are interesting also. They don’t give any names of people that are not also in the Griffith’s Primary Valuation, but they give us an idea of what a typical parish village consisted of in those years:
Crusheen Village:
Proprietor: Augustine Butler of Ballyline, Crusheen.
No Agent.
Middlemen: Lord Fitzgerald and Vesci, and William Green Esq., Liscannor, Ennistymon.
Let to 15 occupying tenants, some having leases and others at will from 20s to 34s per acre, yearly rent. Tithes, from 5d to 7d per acre. Size of farms, from 1 to 24 acres. Soil, limestone, gravely and sandy. Usual crops, wheat, oats, barley and potatoes. Bog, none.
Prevailing names: Clarke and Halloran.
A school here consisting of 95 boys and 40 girls. Protestants 6, Catholics 129. Teacher paid by the scholars. School established in 1822. Inchicronan lake and Brodagh river on the south boundar. Trout, roach, pike, perch and eel in this lake and river. A post office in this village.
Trades and Callings: Houses 32, blacksmiths 2, carpenters 3, tailors 1, coopers 3, nailers 1, shoemakers 2, weavers 3, bootmakers 1, publicans 3, hucksters 4, lodging houses 5, grocers 1. A station of police her. One constable and 5 sub-constables. No fair or market in this village.
Authority; Mr. Chas. Clarke, Crusheen.

I wonder if I am right in thinking that Coffey found these notes in Ely Place, the headquarters of the Valuation, rather than in the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey in the Phoenix Park. And I wonder if they only appear in the Townland Valuation field books for Inchicronan, or if they were copied into the Tenure book for that parish. Anyway, they are very different from the notes on soil samples. And I think that, if there are similar notes on other parishes, they are worth searching for.

Sheila

Sduddy
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (201

Post by Sduddy » Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:40 am

Well, Thomas Coffey was, of course, right about those townland notes – they are from O’Donovan’s Field Name Books, and not from the Townland Valuation original field books. O’Donovan’s Field Name Books belong to the Ordnance Survey (which produced the 1842 six-inch map), and J. H. Andrews writes on them in his book ‘A Paper Landscape’: http://places.galwaylibrary.ie/field-books. O’Donovan’s Field Name Books are also explained in Timeline Genealogy in Ireland: https://timeline.ie/the-ordnance-survey-name-books/. The second last paragraph there describes exactly the notes reproduced in chapter 9 of Thomas Coffey’s book:
“The final section, entitled observations, can provide a wealth of information. Commonly this includes the main topographical features, both natural and man made, the name of the owner, the rents levied on the landlord’s tenants, the type of crops grown, type of soil. Individual observations are made on large houses, churches and geographical features of note all of which provide a valuable description of every townland in Ireland in the 1830s”.
I should never have doubted Coffey, who was a very scholarly researcher.

But how many perambulations of townlands were there! When those notes on the Inchicronan townlands were made, the number of “official” townlands and the names of those townlands had already been decided. Several of the Inchicronan placenames that appear in the Tithe Applotment books had been discarded. It’s clear there had already been a survey of the parish – which Richard Griffith had looked at, and upon which his decisions regarding townlands had been made. That survey had been completed under the boundary department, headed by Grifffith. But O’Donovan submitted his (later) notes to the Ordnance Survey, which was headed by Thomas Colby.
Anyway, it seems that O’Donovan’s Field Name Books are quite a separate set of notes from the Townland Valuation original field books.

Sheila

Sduddy
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Re: A new book on Griffith's Valuation by Frances McGee (2018)

Post by Sduddy » Sun Jul 30, 2023 9:57 am

The work done by Frances Magee on Field Books, House Books, Tenure Books and Quarto Books is mentioned in The National Archives of Ireland Genealogy section, and descriptive notes by her are included: https://genealogy.nationalarchives.ie. Click on “Valuation Office house, field, tenure and quarto books 1824 – 1856”: http://census.nationalarchives.ie/search/vob/home.jsp.

Sheila

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