''The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland'' (originally ''The Acre-Ocracy of England'') is a reference work published by John Bateman in four editions between 1876 and 1883, giving brief details of individuals owning land in the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

to a total of or valuation of £3000 annual income. It has become a standard

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

for historians of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

Compilation

The information was abstracted from the ''Return of Owners of Land'' (1873–1876), a government publication nicknamed the "Modern

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

". Bateman collated the

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

-by-county information, correcting errors, allowing for variations in spelling of surnames, noting with footnotes and asterisks discrepancies and complexities of ownership or income. Owners noted in

Evelyn Shirley Evelyn Shirley may refer to: *Evelyn Shirley (1788–1856), Member of Parliament (MP) *Evelyn Shirley (1812–1882) Evelyn Philip Shirley (22 January 1812 – 19 September 1882), was a British politician, antiquary and genealogist. Background ...

's ''Noble and Gentle Men of England'' as in unbroken possession since the reign of Henry VII were given a special mark; later editions also separately marked owners not listed by Shirley but who protested to Bateman that they had the same antiquity.

John Bateman

John Bateman (1839–1910), editor of ''The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland'', lived at

Brightlingsea Brightlingsea is a coastal town and an electoral ward in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, on Brightlingsea Creek. At the 2011 Census, it had a popu ...

Hall in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, and was a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

and deputy lieutenant for Essex and

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

. In 1865 he married Jessy Caroline Bootle-Wilbraham, sister of

Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Earl of Lathom Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Earl of Lathom (12 December 1837 – 19 November 1898), known as The Lord Skelmersdale between 1853 and 1880, was a British Conservative politician. He was a member of every Conservative administration between 1866 ...

. He left one daughter.

References

Editions

* * * * *

Sources

* Obituary in ''The Times'', October 13, 1910. * Spring "Introduction" in Bateman 1971

Citations

History of agriculture in the United Kingdom British biographical dictionaries British landowners 1876 non-fiction books 1883 non-fiction books {{ref-book-stub