86 LAND REFORM 



owners — yeomen, copyholders, and peasant proprietors, 

 had practically disappeared. 



Many able writers have carefully analysed the re- 

 turns, and the several results arrived at do not greatly 

 vary. Mr. George Brodrick has examined them in 

 a most painstaking manner, and sums up his inquiry 

 by stating : — 



" At all events it is certain that not more than 4000 

 persons, and probably considerably less than 4000, 

 owning estates of 1000 acres and upwards, possess 

 on the aggregate an extent of 19,000,000 acres, or 

 about four-sevenths of the whole area included in the 

 Domesday Book Returns ... we find that a landed 

 aristocracy, consisting of about 2250 persons, own 

 together nearly half the enclosed land in England and 

 Wales. The residue of owners between one acre and 

 2000 acres ostensibly number 249,996. but may be 

 reduced by a proportionate allowance for double en- 

 tries to 147,657. This would give a net total of about 

 150,000 owners above one acre in England and Wales, 

 or less than xro^^"' ^^ ^^^ population — a result which 

 corresponds somewhat closely Vv^ith Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's 

 conclusion that the whole number of landowners prop- 

 erly so called in England and Wales certainly does not 

 exceed 166,000."^ 



1 For details of these calculations sec " English Land and English 

 Landlords," by the Hon. George C. Brodrick. Mr. Kay estimates that 

 nearly five and a half million acres, or nearly one-sixth of the inclosed 

 land in England and Wales, is owned by 280 persons, and that more 

 than one-fourth of the land in England and Wales is owned by 710 

 persons. — (" Free Trade in Land," by Joseph Kay.) The late Sir Arthur 

 Arnold went carefully into the question of " double entries," and after 

 dealing in detail with the Return, he came to the conclusion that 525 

 members of the peerage are counted as 1,500 owners, and that 7,000 

 persons own four-fifths of the land of the United Kingdom. — (" Free 

 Land," Arthur Arnold.) IJateman, in " The Great Landowners of Great 

 Britain and Ireland" (1878), gives an amusing account of the manner in 

 which men owning in several districts are returned as separate owners 

 with diifcrcnt names. Errors in names are abundant. Mr. Ellis Manney, 



