Acerage

[behindthefrogs]

The actual farms although rented did pass around the family with sons moving up to take on the larger farms which their fathers ran.  In the last quarter of the 19th century and early 20th century as the manors were broken up they did start to own the farms and the last one was still in the family in the 1980s despite being surrounded by London suburbs.  I did say this was an extended family and by then it was owned by a third cousin despite being the birth place of my wife's grandmother in 1886, while still rented.

David

[Lendevon]

Certainly very farmers in the west country owned their land, almost all of which was owned by a handful of extremely rich men. But such men needed the farmers just as much as the farmers needed the land.

[linmey]

I can see evidence of this transition in my family because three of my cousins own the land that my ancestors farmed as agricultural labourers. As you say David, the change would have come in the last quarter of the 19th century and early 20th. No poverty there now!!!!
          Linda.

[old rowley]

Hi Linda,

It is possible that your rellies were tenants on the farm. This is easy to check out. If you can get to the local records office nearest the property/area that it was you should be able to look at the poor rate books for the area. These will tell you the owners name, tenants name, acreage and in some cases the type of property (House, cottage etc).

Some Ag Labs did generate up wards along the social scale in the farming community likewise some farmers had to take a step down to Ag Labs when they were ejected from the farms by the landowners and they could not get another farm. Saying that this practise seemed to be few and far between.

After the first world war hundreds of large estates were hit with crippling taxes and had to sell off properties to survive and it was at this time that many tenants were in a position (with the help from the banks) to purchase the farms that they and sometimes their families had worked for generations.

old rowley

[linmey]

Thanks for that Old Rowley. I am actually looking into life in their village and looking up various records to track their lives in the 19th century, so thank you for the tips.
   My great great grandfather was on the census as a grazier of 37 acres and its him |I would like to know about. Was it his land or not? I have to rethink now?
           Many thanks.  Linda.

[Guy Etchells]

107 Acres in the early 1800s would be an average size farm.
Many farms of the time ranged between 80 & 130 acres with small farms around the 30 acre mark and large farms 240 acres.

Obviously much would depend on the location.
Looking at the Bottesford census (good farming land) farms of the 100 acre size would employ one or two labourers plus a boy.
The farmer would certainly be comfortable.
Cheers
Guy

[linmey]

My great grandfathers farm was 248 acres so that means he just about slips in to the large farm category according to Guys calculations. He also rented land and owned a working mill. He certainly did well out of it.
        Linda.

[nadiawalton]

Wow! So many replys
thanks, all this has really given me an idea on what my ancestors lives were like, and its definately something I'm planning to look into in more detail now, like whether he was a tenant or had inherited/bought the land.
if 1 acre is roughly the size of a football pitch, then 107 acres must have seemed huge! Not that there were many football stadiums around in those days 

So is there anywhere online i can check to see whether he was the owner or not? This whole thing has become very interesting to me now!

Thanks all! Sorry i asn't around to join in the conversations last night!

Happy Hunting

Nadia

[linmey]

Hi Nadia, I found the sale of my great grandfathers farm in the Beds Archives on line, through the National Archives. It was in the parish records for his village because he bought it from the church.