Who Owns Britain

460 Pages·2002·18.141 MB·English

by  Kevin M. Cahill

WHO OWNS BRITAIN
KEVIN CAHILL
CANONGATE
First published in Great Britain in 2001 by
Canongate Books, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EHl lTE
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
© Kevin Cahill, 2001
Kevin Cahill has asserted his right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
to be identified as the author of this work
Author's note: Since the completion of research on this book, Lord Camoys has registered his
ownership of Stonor Park in the Land Registry. The Land Registry has amended its charge for a
basic search to £4.
Maps created by Drawing Attention/Rhona and Robert Burns
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 86241 912 3
Designed and typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Polmont, Stirlingshire
Printed and bound by Bath Press
www.canongate.net
To
Ros, Kay, Jane and Stella
Contents
List of tables lX
List of maps
Xl
Acknowledgments Xll
PART I
BRITAIN'S GREATEST SECRET - THE OWNERSHIP OF ITS LAND
Preface: Who Does Own Britain - A Typical 'Great' Landowner 3
1 Why Land Matters 6
2 A Brief History of Landownership in Britain 20
3 The story of the 1872 Return of Owners of Land 29
4 Royal Land: The landed possessions of the Queen and her court 58
5 The Crown Estate 72
6 The Duchy of Cornwall 84
7 The Duchy of Lancaster 93
8 The House of Lords 102
9 The Plantagenet Inheritance: A tale of great survival 121
10 The Big Institutional Landowners 137
11 Land in London 148
12 The Church of England 163
13 Scotland 176
14 Ireland: Land, prosperity and nation building 186
15 England and the Inner Empire 199
16 Conclusion 206
PART II
THE COUNTIES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
England 222
Scotland 266
Wales 304
• orthern Ireland 318
Republic of Ireland 326
PART III
THE LAND LISTS
1872:
1 - Top 100 landowners in the UK & Ireland ranked by
(a) acreage, and (b) land value 359
2 - Top 50 landowners in (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland,
(d) Northern Ireland and (e) the Republic of Ireland ranked by acreage 367
3 - Top 50 aristocratic landowners in the UK & Ireland ranked
by acreage 377
2001:
4 - Top 100 landowners in the UK & Republic of Ireland ranked
by (a) acreage, and (b) land value 379
5 - Top 100 landowners in the UK & Republic of Ireland ranked by wealth 387
6 - Top 100 aristocratic landowners in the UK & Republic of Ireland ranked
by acreage 3 91
Appendix 1 - A Note on Comparative Values 395
Appendix 2 - How Land is Owned in the UK and Ireland 397
Appendix 3 - The Inheritance of the Throne 1066-2001 399
Notes 401
Bibliography 414
Index 421
viii CONTENTS
List of Tables
Table 1/1 The basic land use structure of the UK and Ireland 9
Table 1/2 Land in the UK and Ireland and who lives where 11
Table 1/3 The ownership of land in the UK and Ireland 13
Table 1/3B Number of people owning land worth over £1 million 13
Table 1/4 The big acreages and their distribution and ownership 15
Table 1/5 Tenure of agricultural landholdings in the UK 1997-1999 15
Table 1/6 Breakdown of agricultural landholdings in the UK 1997-1999 17
Table 1/7 Top 20 Landowners in the UK (2001) 18
Table 1/7B An alternative breakdown of landownership 18
Table 3/1 Land Owned by Top Ten Dukes, 1872 40
Table 3/2 John Bateman's breakdown of landownership by class, 1872 45
Table 4/1 Value of the Queen's landholdings 61
Table 5/1 Growth of the Crown Estate from the late 1800s to 1938 73
Table 5/2 Significant Acquisitions in the Crown Estate in the
Twentieth Century 75
Table 5/3 Crown Estate Acreage and Revenues 2000, before expenses 79
Table 8/1 Prevalence of Aristocracy in the Sunday Times
Rich List, 1998 (pre reform) and 2000 (post reform). 106
Table 8/2 The Landowning Dukes 107
Table 9/1 The Plantagent Survivors 131
Table 9/2 The Wealth of the Plantagenet Dukes 136
Table 10/1 Leading UK landowners c.1962 139
Table 1012 Top 20 institutional landowners in the UK 147
Table 11/1 Last-known record of 'tenants for life' of the Eyre
Estate in St John's Wood 156
Table 11/2 London Landowners 1890 and 2001 (ranked by acreage) 158
Table 11/3 London Landowners 2001 (ranked by value of holding) 162
Table 12/1 Summary of the landholdings of the Church of 163
England in England 18 72
Table 12/2 The parish glebe: the secret acres of the Church of England 164
ix
Table 12/3 The Church of England's missing acres 165
Table 13/1 Land in Britain held in estates of over 1000 acres, 1872 177
Table 13/2 Land in Scotland held in estates of over 1000 acres, 1970-99 177
Table 13/3 John McEwan's breakdown of landownership in Scotland 178
Table 13/4 Andy Wightman's breakdown of landownership in Scotland 180
Table 14/1 The overall change from estates to farms in Ireland 1872-1998 192
Table 14/2 Home ownership in the Republic of Ireland 1998 193
Table 15/1 The top 10 English landowners in 1872 and their acres within
the inner 'first' empire 200
Table 15/2 The top 10 landowners living in Ireland in 1872 and
their landholdings in England 203
Table 15/3 Top 10 Welsh landowners in 1872 and their landholdings
in England 203
Table 15/4 Top 10 Scottish landowners in 1872 and their landholdings
in England 204
Table 15/5 Percentage of each country owned by top 10 landowners in 1872 204
x LIST OF TABLES
List of Maps
i) Great Britain and Ireland 1872 & 2001 - some basic figures 7
ii) Principal London Landowners 159
iii) The counties of England & Wales, 1872 224
iv) The counties of England & Wales, 2001 225
v) The counti~s of Scotland, 1872 268
vi) The counties of Scotland, 2001 269
vii) The counties of Ireland, 1872 & 2001 319, 328
xi
Acknowledgments
The making of this book, for making, not writing, is the only way to describe the project,
has taken about 13 years. It began when Dr Philip Beresford, editor and author of the
Sunday Times annual Rich List, hauled me back from attempting to present an opera in
Moscow in 1988 to help him research the first Rich List. He assigned me to actors,
actresses, jockeys and the aristocracy. It was in pursuit of the wealth of the latter, mostly
in the form of land, that I discovered the gap in the Land Registry, and the total absence
of any accurate information at all as to who actually owned our four countries. Eventually,
with the help of Philip and Ealing Public Library, a copy of Bateman was found. But not
the 1872 Returns, the existence of which was denied by the Royal Agricultural Society
and the Country Landowners Association, and to whom no thanks are due for either the
discovery of the Returns in the Devon & Exeter Institution, or the use of the Returns in
this book.
It is thanks to Philip, therefore, and his wife Della Bradshaw, a journalist with the
Financial Times, that I owe the inspiration for this book. I am forever indebted to Glen
Hughes and Michael Plumb for persuading me to carry on when I lost both track and
plot. Richard Norton-Taylor the Guardian journalist and playwright, lent both books,
time and encouragement. His colleagues on the Guardian, Paul Brown and David Pallister,
have been a source of support and inspiration throughout. Andy Wightman, author of
Who Owns Scotland, and the man who picked up the torch of truth on landowning
after the chronicler John McEwen had laid it down, introduced me to the ever patient
Jamie Byng, the Publisher at Canongate Books, and provided guidance and support
throughout the project. The journalists Mark Watts, Peter Sawyer and Yvonne Ridley,
all stood by their man as the real nature of the task emerged and, horror of horrors,
deadlines were missed. Chris Blackhurst, recently deputy editor of the Daily Express,
took a supportive interest as did Rachel Oldroyd, Gaynor Pengelly and Rodrick Gilchrist,
the Rich Report team at the Mail on Sunday, and also Martin Tompkinson. Graham
Smith of Westcountry Television gave the issue its first airing, and the general public
their first sight of the Returns in over 130 years, in 1999. Tom Rubython, now the editor
of Eurobusiness magazine, gave me both work and encouragement through the years,
and above all the chance to examine landed and Royal wealth in Europe for the Richest
400 Europeans, published by Eurobusiness in 2000. Chris Butt, the Publisher and Editor
of BusinessAge magazine has given encouragement and support in the closing stages of
the book.
In Ireland I owe James Connolly SC and Garrett Wren CA an unlimited debt of grat
itude, for friendship over decades, for books, for advice, and above all for wisdom, on
a subject that remains sensitive even in the Republic. I also owe a debt of gratitude to
the Hon. Richard Burke, former Vice President of the European Commission, to Eileen
Murphy, Barry Flood, Jerry Doyle and Denis McSweeney for their support and encour
agement. To Michael Addo, Dean of Exeter University Law School and his brother
Xll