14. Edward Fenlon deposes to the Bessborough Commission.

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Anillustration showing temporary accommodation being erected for evicted tenants during the Land War.

Chris Lawlor

Diversion 14. Today’s diversion is a slightly reworked extract from an essay I did some years ago, which uses some of Edward Fenlon’s evidence as a witness to the Bessborough Commission. This commission was set up to investigate landlord-tenant relationships and the practices relating to landholding that pertained in the wake of the 1870 Land Act. Although published as a parliamentary paper in 1881, the commission’s evidence and information actually relate to the late 1870s. It was during this decade that the land question came sharply into focus. Gladstone’s first land act was passed at the beginning of the decade (1870) and the Land League was formed at the end of the decade (1879). The accompanying illustration shows temporary accommodation being erected for evicted tenants during the Land War. Enjoy the diversion!

Edward Fenlon actually lived in Kilcullen, Co. Kildare, but we may take it that much of his evidence would also be true for the Dunlavin area, particularly as he claimed to speak for the ‘vast majority of farmers . . . in Co. Wicklow’ as well.[1] Fenlon claimed to be ‘as moderate a man as anybody else’,[2] yet he roundly attacked the landlord system and poured vitriol on the arrangements pertaining to obtaining leases and improvements to property made by tenants in his interview. Fenlon spoke of ‘the inadequacy of the land act’ (of 1870),[3] and gave numerous examples of how the tenants are suffering at the hands of greedy, unscrupulous and uncaring landlords. Of course, as with many primary sources, we must keep in mind the fact that the evidence of this witness may be biased. Just as John Norton of Rathsallagh (another strong farmer) had told the Devon Commission of 1845 that small tenants ‘are doing better than the large ones because they have not so much to do’,[4] so Edward Fenlon told the Bessborough Commission that although there were some local examples of bad farming, ‘tenants of the class I represent don’t go in for that sort of thing’.[5] Obviously, witnesses had to look after their own interests when deposing before commissioners!

Even allowing for bias, the picture that emerges from Fenlon’s evidence is not a pretty one for the tenant farmer. There had been evictions in the local area throughout much of the nineteenth century – indeed Thomas Radcliff’s ‘Report of the agriculture and livestock of the County of Wicklow prepared under the directions of the Farming Society of Ireland’ (published in 1812), John Norton’s evidence to the ‘Devon Commission’, the ‘Abstract return of notices served on relieving officers of poor law districts in Ireland, by land-owners under the Act for the Protection and Relief of Destitute Poor evicted from their dwellings’ (a parliamentary paper published in 1849) and certain passages in the ‘Shearman Papers’ (from the 1860s) confirm this. Many of these evictions stemmed from the tenants’ inability to pay rent, and Fenlon provided the commissioners with some examples of exorbitant annual increases in rents – including from £17 to £33.14.0 per annum, from £57.10.0 to £83 per annum and from £50.18.9 to £78 per annum.[6]

Fenlon makes the valid point that such rent increases provided the tenant with no incentive to improve property, and cited a case of a tenant who let his farm run down before the renewal of the lease. His rent was only increased by a few shillings so ‘the man that ran down his land got off well’.[7]  Fenlon himself was in a sort of limbo regarding his lease and stated that he was ‘in the dilemma that he is improving the property . . . but may only be a tenant from year to year’. The commissioners offered him no comfort and he was simply informed ‘Your position is not a pleasant one’.[8] Fenlon’s evidence illustrated the injustices of the landlord system. He had to pay the same rent on waste land [a fox-cover] as on good land.[9] All the improvements in the area were done by the tenant rather than the landlord (with the exception of ‘one landlord who built some out offices and drains, charging percentage’). Valuators were told by landlords what price to put on the land.[10] Landlords wouldn’t accept arbitration – Fenlon stated that one landlord ‘would hear nothing from me. He jumped around me when I spoke to him’.[11] Yet the tenant had ‘no option but to give the increase if there is a lease,’ but was much worse off without a lease. Fenlon advocated arbitration of leases but wanted ‘permanent security’ which ‘would thoroughly satisfy’ him.[12] Fenlon’s evidence also provides much additional information about landholding, leases, manuring of land and other farming practices at the time, but I have tried to concentrate on his attitude to the landlord system and his aspirations for security from eviction through Fixity of Tenure.

Such fixity was one of the ‘three Fs’ sought by the Land League, along with Fair Rent and Free Sale (of leases). The league’s ultimate objective became the elimination of the landlord system, and it was unsurprising that strong farmers such as Fenlon would be to the forefront in the Land War that followed shortly afterwards.

ENDNOTES.

[1] 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 [2779], H. C. 1881, xix, pp 132-6. Hereafter cited as Bessborough Commission.
[2] Bessborough Commission, p. 134.
[3] Ibid, p. 132.
[4] Twenty-one witnesses from county Wicklow gave evidence to the Devon Commission and they are listed in Appendix to minutes of evidence taken before Her Majesty’s Commissioners of inquiry into the state of the law and practice in respect of the occupation of land in Ireland, part iv (Dublin, 1845), pp xxx-xxxi. The evidence of the Wicklow deponents was published in part iii of the Report of the commission of inquiry into the state of the law and practice in respect of the occupation of land in Ireland, iii [616], H.C. 1845, xxi. This report is usually referred to as the Devon Commission. Norton’s statement is on Devon Commission, xxi, p. 563.
[5] Bessborough Commission, p. 135.
[6] Ibid, p. 132.
[7] Ibid, p. 132.
[8] Ibid, p. 133.
[9] Ibid, p. 133.
[10] Ibid, p. 134.
[11] Ibid, p. 132.
[12] Ibid, p. 134.