The Devon Commission (officially 'Commission on Occupation of Land (Ireland)') was a commission that was appointed by

Sir Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...

to research the problems with

land lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

s. It was formed by a queen's proclamation issued 20 November 1843 and reported 14 February 1845. This was a positive step for the government as it made the Irish believe that reform would come soon afterwards. This was the first time that a British government had taken a step towards reforming the unfair leases. The Devon Commission was headed by William Courtney, the 10th Earl of Devon,''House of Lords biography''
/ref> and it reported in 1845 that the population of Ireland had increased from 6 million people to close on 8 million people. Similarly they concluded that the leases were unfair and were favourable to the landowners (who were usually

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

). The majority of Irish

tenant Tenant may refer to: Real estate *Tenant, the holder of a leasehold estate in real estate *Tenant-in-chief, in feudal land law *Tenement (law), the holder of a legal interest in real estate *Tenant farmer *Anchor tenant, one of the larger stores ...

s had no form of protection, they could be, and often were, summarily

evicted Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee (often, the prior owners who defaulted on a mortgage ...

. They also had no claim to the

Ulster Custom Tenant-right is a term in the common law system expressing the right to compensation which a tenant has, either by custom or by law, against his landlord for improvements at the termination of his tenancy. In England, it was governed for the most ...

landholding In real estate, a landed property or landed estate is a property that generates income for the owner (typically a member of the gentry) without the owner having to do the actual work of the estate. In medieval Western Europe, there were two compet ...

- this would have granted tenants the "3F's":

Free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent Free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent, also known as the Three Fs, were a set of demands first issued by the Tenant Right League in their campaign for land reform in Ireland from the 1850s. They were, * Fair rent—meaning rent control: fo ...

. The Devon Commission had wide reaching consequences and though too late to prevent the

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

, it did galvanize change afterwards.

References

* ''The Irish Problem and How to Solve It'', Elibron Classics
Google Books
1840s in Ireland Land reform in Ireland {{UK-gov-stub