Griffith's Valuation (also known as the Primary Valuation of Ireland) is an important land record for Ireland in the mid 19th century. It was the first, full-scale valuation of property carried out in Ireland and details of property with valuations were published between 1847 and 1864. The valuation is named for Sir Richard Griffith, the commissioner in charge of the survey. In the early 19th century, taxes were based on property and the methods of calculation varied from county to county. The Government wanted to create a consistent system and needed to find out who its people were and how much they might be able to tax them. There is a printed valuation book for each barony or poor law union in the country, showing the names of occupiers of land and buildings, the names of those from whom these were leased, and the amount and value of the property held. It was not, however, a census, nor was it intended to be one. Instead, it was a land survey and has a number of limitations. Only the head of the household is identified. Family relationships and other personal information are not recorded.[1]
Research your ancestors on MyHeritage
Sir Richard Griffith
Sir Richard Griffith, was born 20 September 1784 at 8 Hume St., Dublin (the house is marked by a plaque), son of Richard Griffith, MP for Askeaton, deputy governor of Co. Kildare, and director of the Grand Canal Co. of Ireland, and Charity Yorke (née Bramston; d. 1789) of Oundle, Northamptonshire. His father had made a considerable fortune with the East India Co., but lost a great deal of money during the building of the canals.
.jpg)
Between 1809 and 1813, Griffith served as one of a number of engineers appointed to investigate and map bogs for the Irish bog commissioners, and produced a valuable report on the bog of Allen. Recognising his newly acquired geological expertise, the Dublin Society in 1809 commissioned him to survey the Leinster coalfield; his report and map were published in 1814, and he followed this with similar reports for the Connacht coalfield (1819) and that of Co. Tyrone and Co. Antrim (1829).
He was responsible for overseeing two important surveys. The first general survey undertaken was the ‘perambulation’ or ‘boundary survey’, which mapped the extent of the 68,000 townlands in Ireland. The second tenement valuation survey, which became known as ‘Griffith’s Valuation’, was established in 1846 and charged with estimating the value of land holdings, data that was then used to determine local taxation levies. From 1836 he was a commissioner of railways (the commission deliberated until 1838 on the most suitable routes for Ireland's developing rail network), and later was appointed deputy chairman, and subsequently chairman, of the board of works, positions he held between 1846 and 1864.[2]
Background to the Valuation
The Act of Union of 1801 dissolved the Irish parliament sitting in Dublin and brought Ireland fully under the control of the parliament in Westminster.[3] Most of the land in Ireland was under the ownership of wealthy landlords, many of whom were absentee, living in Britain and leaving management of their Irish estates to a local agent.
In 1826 a law was passed that allowed for a uniform valuation of property in all of Ireland. This meant that the same rules would be used all around the country to decide the value of property so that Grand Jury taxes and rates could be calculated and charged. The Tenement Act of 1842 sought to apply a uniform method of taxation based on the productivity or income of real property. All the land of Ireland was surveyed for the purpose of establishing the level of rates (local tax) to be paid by each landholder or leaseholder. The rates were used to determine liability to pay the Poor rate, for the support of the poor and destitute within each Poor Law Union.[4]
Griffith’s Valuation (1847-64) was the third survey by the Valuation Office to calculate what taxes should be charged. Each of the surveys overlaps in time, but produced a unique set of records. The Field & House Books [aka Quarto Books] are the records of the earliest survey, which started in 1828 and continued to the mid-1840s.
These records include the following evidence:
- The date of the survey.
- The name of the householder, their townland address, and a description of their property with the valuation settled on.
- The name of the landlord.
In 1833, Richard Griffith’s issued instructions to his surveyors that set the standard for what information was collected. Henceforth, they were required to measure the external walls of buildings for all houses that were included in the House Books, and the occupiers names. They were also required to estimate the age and quality of the Building, using letters and numbers to indicate the age, quality & repair. This work was organised by barony and the valuators worked their way systematically through the townlands and parishes of each barony in a county, recording the information required.
Between 1847 and 1864, Richard Griffith was responsible for carrying out the Primary Valuation of Tenements (generally referred to a Griffith's Valuation because of his role in the project). The aim of the valuation was to produce a uniform guide to the relative value of land throughout the whole of Ireland in order to decide liability to pay the Poor rate (for the support of the poor and destitute within each Poor Law union). The project required Griffith and a team of valuers to determine the value of every piece of land and property in the country enabling every occupiers' tax due to be assessed. The information they collated covering all 32 counties was compiled into over 300 volumes and published over a period of 17 years.[5]
Information Included
Griffith's Valuation includes over 300 books and original maps. The data collected was organised by county; initially each volume related to a Barony (1846 – 1852) while each volume published after 1852 relates to a Poor Law Union. In both cases, volumes are themselves further sub-divided into civil parishes and townlands. Civil parishes correspond to Church of Ireland parishes and townlands are the most basic Irish land unit. Where the volumes were arranged by barony there are three publications: a full valuation, a list of appeals and a revised version. After 1852, amendments and revised acts were not required. So, depending on which county you are researching there may be more than one volume for a particular location.
Column 1: 'Number and letters of reference to map.'
This is the reference number for every piece of property in a townland (generally the smallest administrative division of land in Ireland) and used to navigate between the printed books and the maps.
Column 2: 'Townlands and occupier.'
This has the name of the occupier – the person living on the land, who will usually be the tenant.
Column 3: 'Immediate Lessors.'
This is the name of the landlord, their agent, or sometimes the middleman who sublet a holding. By the early 1850s it is not unusual to see some tenants sub letting land to other tenants.
Column 4: Description of tenement.
A tenement is defined in legal terms as the piece of land set to rent. This column can provide a guide as to whether this tenement was the location of the main dwelling or just land held by the occupier.
Sometimes the quality of the land will be noted in italics: 'Land (bog)' or Land '(mountain).'
Column 5: defines the area of the land in acres, roods and perches.[6]
Column 6 is the yearly tax charged on the land component of the tenement,
Column 7 is the yearly tax charged on all buildings on the tenement.
Column 8 is the sum of tax charged on the land and buildings.[7]
One problem that the surveyors encountered was that many of the people in a particular area they were surveying had the same forename and surname. The surveyors used the first name of the father of the householders to differentiate between them. For example, Michael O' Reilly (Sean) is the son of Sean O' Reilly and Michael O' Reilly (Patrick) is the son of Patrick O' Reilly.
Valuation Maps
What is often overlooked about Griffith’s Valuation are the attached maps. On the Valuation, the numbers and letters which reference the maps are the connection between the Valuation and the Ordnance Survey map which accompanies it; the numbers appear on the left of the ‘Number and Letters’ column on the original pages of the Valuation. In general, each townland is surrounded by a thick line on the map, with the numbered subdivisions outlined with lighter lines. The numbers represent a lot number, a single area outlined on the Ordnance Survey map and labelled with that number.
Capital letters after the subdivision number (e.g. ‘2A, B ,C’) are used to label subdivisions within a lot and indicate separate parcels of property in the townland held by the same individual. For example, if a John Kelly rented two separate fields in the townland of Ballymore, these will be listed within the townland under his name following each other as 2 A, B. It follows that the order of the personal names within each townland does not imply geographical location: the fact that two names appear beside each other does not mean that the individuals were neighbours. The number represents only the order in which the valuator listed each holding in his manuscript field book.
The same capital letter can appear more than once within the same numbered lot when the location of cottagers' or labourers' houses is being indicated.
Lower-case letters after the holding number (e.g. ‘2a, b ,c’) indicate a single property held in common by a number of listed occupiers. This was common in rural areas in early and mid-nineteenth century Ireland, especially in the West, with anything up to 20 families farming an area in common.
Lower-case italic letters are used to indicate built structures, including houses. The order in which these lower-case letters appear is significant: where cottagers' or labourers' houses are included within the limits of a farm, the farmer's house is labelled a, while the cottagers' houses are labelled b, c ...
It should be noted that the connection between the maps and the Valuation is never perfect; there are some omissions and mistakes. The best connection is in the working copies of the maps used in the Valuation Office itself.[8]
Consulting Griffith’s Valuation
No library or archives hold the complete set of 301 Griffith's publications (which included new volumes where updates and amendments had been made). The National Library of Ireland and the Valuation Office have the largest collection of original volumes. Other collections are held in The National Archives of Ireland, the Genealogical Office and the Gilbert Library and the private collection of George Handran. It is very important to be aware of the publication date for any county as the data could have been gathered over a period of many years before this date and all later updates will have to be searched for elsewhere. A useful guide to the year of publication for each county can be found on Claire Santry's Irish Genealogy Toolkitwebsite.
Griffith's Valuation is available to search on MyHeritage. It can be searched by name (first and/or last), keyword (for example forge, or a specific building if a family was connected to a trade). It can also be searched by townland, civil parish or county.
Later Valuations
The Valuation Books were periodically updated well into the 20th century. However, only the Revision Books for the six Northern Ireland counties are available online. These can be accessed through the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.[9] The later Valuation records for the rest of Ireland can only be accessed in-person or by ordering online through the Valuation Office of Ireland in Dublin.[10]
See also
Explore more about Griffith's Valuation
- Ireland, Griffith's Valuation, 1847-1864 record collection at MyHeritage
- Foundations of Irish Genealogy 11: The Valuation Office webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ "Griffiths Valuation - one of Irish family history's top resources". www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Griffith, Sir Richard John". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Act of Union | Ireland, Scotland & England | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Guide to the archives of the Poor Law – The National Archives of Ireland". Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Guide to the archives of the Valuation Office – The National Archives of Ireland". Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Understanding Acres, Roods & Perches". Lochista. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "An expert guide to the Griffith's Valuation | Blog". www.findmypast.com. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Using the Valuation and Maps". www.askaboutireland.ie. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Searching Valuation Revision Books | nidirect". www.nidirect.gov.uk. 2015-12-01. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ↑ "Genealogy". www.tailte.ie. Retrieved 2024-07-07.