Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation of 1858/1859 for Co. Londonderry

Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation of 1858/1859 for Co. Londonderry Given the absence of Census Enumerators' Returns for the nineteenth century, the Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation is a key source for identifying heads of households in the middle of the nineteenth century. The valuation not only lists the occupiers of land and houses in each townland within the county, it comes with a map [scale 6 inches to the mile] which locates the properties and houses within townlands and larger scale town maps [usually around 4 or 5 feet to the mile] which locate properties within streets. This valuation which covers every townland and town in Ireland began in 1848 and was completed by 1864. The valuation of the county of Londonderry was undertaken during the years 1856 to 1858, the parishes in the northwest of the county being the earliest to be valued. The valuers recorded their findings in field notebooks and the results were printed in booklets for each Poor Law Union dated either 1858 or 1859. This explains why I use the dates 1858/59 when referring to the Griffith's Printed [Tenement] Valuation in Co. Londonderry. Copies of the field notebooks are held in PRONI - VAL/2/B. Each printed booklet has a comprehensive index. Here you will be able to see the date when the valuation was printed for each Poor Law Union. However, the index will only help you to find places such as townlands, parishes, baronies, etc. If you are looking for a particular name you will have to search through the pages in each valuation book. Manual searching can be very time-consuming and it is very easy to miss a name. There are a number of online databases of the valuation which makes this task somewhat easier. I have also created a database of the names listed in the printed valuation for the whole county. You will find the links to these databases at the 1858/59 Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation link at the bottom of the left-hand menu and in the Valuation Records link in the top menu. Remember that databases can sometimes miss names. You will also find examples of copies of pages from the Printed Griffith's, with accompanying maps, in all of the locality studies in the right-hand menu. This should mean that most of you will be able to choose example pages and maps from a part of the county familiar to you. The remainder of this paper concentrates on providing you with some guidance on how to read both the pages in the printed and manuscript valuation books and the accompanying valuation maps. The first section deals with townlands in rural areas, the second with streets in towns and the final section with the manuscript field books.. TOWNLANDS IN RURAL AREAS On the next page you will see part of a page from the printed valuation for the townland of Gorteade which, at that time, was part of the Electoral Division of Swatragh in the Poor Law Union of Magherafelt and part of the Parish of Maghera in the Barony of Loughinsholin. Note that the sheet numbers of the relevant OS Maps for the townland are also given under the name of the townland in column 2 - numbers 32 and 33. Note also that the printed valuations for the Magherafelt and the Coleraine Poor Law Unions were dated 1859. Those for Londonderry, Limavady and Ballymoney [in Co. Londonderry] Poor Law Unions were dated 1858. The actual dates of the original surveys and valuations normally took place a year earlier. 1

As you can see the page is divided into columns. The numbers and letters in the first column, on the left, are used to identify holdings and houses on the six inch maps which accompany the Printed Valuation. Where a person or persons have a holding which is one continuous plot of land it is identified by a number only, e.g. number 1, occupied by Michael McGowan. Where a holding consists of a number of plots of land separated from each other within the townland, each plot is identified by a capital letter, e.g. 6A & 6B and 9a & 9B, the holdings of Hugh Lafferty and Patrick Kane respectively. Note, however, that Patrick Kane does not live on either 9A or 9B. In fact he lived on plot 10B in a house marked a. On the same plot of land was a Bernard Kane who lived in a house marked b. Note that where there is more than one house on a plot of land a lower case letter is used to identify each house. Another example of this on the map is 7a & 7b, the houses of Patrick McMaster, senior and junior. Unfortunately, it is often very difficult, if not impossible, to identify lower case letters on the accompanying valuation map - see below. Another point worth making is that Patrick and Bernard Kane shared the two plots of land 10A and 10 B. Both of them had their houses on 10B. Patrick also held 9A and 9B on his own and Bernard held 11 on his own. The next column gives the name of the townland or street and the names of the occupiers of the land and buildings. Note, however, that one person could be listed as occupying more than one property in a townland or a street and it must be remembered that, sometimes, the person listed against a holding may not actually be living there. For example, in the case of herd's houses which were used on a casual and seasonal basis, the name listed is usually that of the farmer who owned the house, rather than its actual occupant. The same can sometimes happen in the case of cottier houses, i.e. houses rented by farmers to their labourers. Fortunately, in most rural areas the name listed in the printed Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation is usually the name of the actual occupant. However, the same cannot always be said of streets in towns, particularly those streets which had businesses in them. The next column shows the names of the immediate lessors (i.e. the persons from whom the tenants in the townland rented their land and houses). In this example most of the persons listed here are farmers renting from the Mercers Company. Note that cottiers held their houses from farmers, i.e. not directly from the head landlord, e.g. William Hannay, 8a, held his house from Archibald Kane Jun. In this instance there is no land associated with this house. Some cottier houses had small gardens. The next column provides a description of the tenement, i.e. the holding. Note that an office is a farm outbuilding. There are no offices mentioned in this example which, in a sense, tells you something about these relatively small farms. The remaining four columns give details of the size of each holding in acres, roods and perches and a valuation of the property in pounds, shillings and pence. For younger readers there are 40 perches in a rood and 4 roods in an acre. There are 12 old pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound sterling. 2

Below is part of the valuation map of the townland of Gorteade (PRONI ref. VAL/2/A series) which accompanies the Printed Valuation of 1859. The valuers used the revised version of the first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps as their base maps to create the maps which are known in PRONI as the VAL/2/A maps. On these maps they marked out and numbered individual holdings [tenements] - hence the title Tenement Valuation. Note that the term 'tenement' is used in its medieval sense as meaning a holding rather than in its modern sense of a building housing many separate families. It is quite difficult to read the numbers on the individual plots of land on these VAL/2/A maps, and house numbers are often indecipherable as the map below illustrates. PRONI: VAL/2/A/5/32 An alternative map is the later VAL/12/D series which is shown on the next page. This map dates from around the 1870s and because there was little change in the layout of holdings between 1859 and 1870, the numbers on this map match the numbers in the 1859 Printed Valuation. You can see the plots of land 6A, 6B, 9A and 9B more clearly. Also, the houses 7a, 7b, 8a, 10Ba and 10Bb are just about visible on this map. Part of the problem is that the house letters on these maps are in colour and, therefore, do not photocopy very well. Recently, PRONI have introduced colour photocopying which, to some extent, alleviates the problem. Also you can use the maps on the askaboutireland.ie website - see below. 3

PRONI: VAL/12/D/5/32 In many instances the VAL/2/A maps are even worse. The example on the next page, from PRONI ref. VAL/2/A/5/36, shows part of the area around Tobermore, which lay well to the south of Gorteade and had a different sheet number. Here, the valuers have included their valuations of plots of land in shillings and pence which makes it almost impossible to read the numbers identifying the individual plots of land, never mind the lower case letters identifying the houses. This practice of putting actual valuations on what essentially are fields, is very common. Incidentally, if you add up the valuations of each field on a holding and average it, you will come fairly close to the figure given for the valuation of land on that holding in the printed valuation. 4

PRONI: VAL/2/A/5/36 STREETS IN TOWNS The maps for towns are much larger in scale, usually around 48 to 60 inches to the mile. Again some are in better condition than others. The map of part of Coleraine [VAL/2/D/5/15 below], along with the map for the City of Derry/Londonderry, are probably the worst for the county. Those for Dungiven, Limavady and Magherafelt are much better. This map shows the properties in Church Street, Coleraine c.1859. As you can see each building has a number which matches the number in the printed valuation. The printed pages for towns have exactly the same layout as those for townlands but obviously the amount of land associated with houses will be much less. In many cases the land associated with a house was described as a yard or small garden and no measurement was given unless it was approaching a rood [40 perches] or more in size as the page [on the next page] for Church Street in Coleraine shows. Towns were valued within the particular townlands that the town, as a whole, occupied. Many of the occupants of houses in towns had land in the townlands surrounding the town. Furthermore, if a street lay partly in one townland and partly in another then the two parts of the street will be in different pages in the valuation book. This happens, particularly, in the case of the city of Londonderry. It is 5

also worth pointing out that there are normally more instances in towns where the person listed as the occupier of the property did not actually live there. Both the pages from the Printed Valuation and the accompanying valuation maps are now available online at the website askaboutireland.ie [free]. Note that the maps [powered by Google] are of good quality. In fact, I would suggest that when looking at the copies of maps in the locality studies on the CD, you go to the Internet and get the askaboutireland copy for comparison. Note that these maps are not meant for download, but are quite easy to read on a computer screen. Note, however, that there are no large scale maps of towns on the website. However there are some areas of the county that are not, at the time of writing, covered by the maps. These include the western half of sheet 17 [Drumsurn area], sheet 18 [Garvagh area] and sheets 21 to 25 which cover a swathe of the county running from Claudy to Dungiven. On the next page there is an index map of all the OS sheets covering the county. This should give you a general idea of the area within the county that is missing. Of course, in time, these missing maps will probably appear on the site. Note that there are pre-1905 and a post-1905 index maps. This is because the First Edition of the OS maps was replaced by the Second Edition c.1905. 6

This index map should be used for maps up to 1905. This index map should be used for maps after 1905. Note the changes in the areas covered by the maps west of Ballykelly. 7

If you want to visit PRONI to look at the original valuation maps you need to know the OS number of the sheet [or sheets] covering your townland or townlands. The reference for the VAL/2/A maps will always begin VAL/2/A/5/ all you need to do is add the sheet number. The index map shown on the previous page is one source for the sheet number. Other sources are the pages of the Griffith's Printed Valuation Books and another source on this CD is the Official Townlands within the County database at the Administrative Divisions within the County link in the top menu. However, as mentioned above, you may be somewhat disappointed with some of the VAL/2/A maps and, as I recommended above, it might be better to use the VAL/12/D maps. For more information on this read the paper on The Griffith's Revision Books, c.1860 to c.1930. With the VAL/2/D maps, which are the large scale maps of towns and villages, I would recommend that you use the online ecatalogue before visiting PRONI. An example is shown below. Here I typed in VAL/2D/5* in the "PRONI Ref.:" box in the "Search the ecatalogue" window and the name of town that I was looking for - in this case Coleraine - in the "Any Text" box, and clicked on Search. This is the result 8

MANUSCRIPT FIELD BOOKS As was stated in the introduction to this valuation, the valuers recorded their findings in field notebooks and the results were printed in booklets for each Poor Law Union. These manuscript, valuers' field books are available in PRONI [VAL/2/B]. They are certainly worth consulting because they contain individual valuer's comments and, in many cases, more detail on individual buildings which are not included in the printed version. In fact I found it difficult to choose a date for the Griffith s Valuation because the actual valuations took place between 1856 and 1858 and the printed versions appeared between 1858 and 1859. Below is a page from the manuscript book of Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation for Church Street, Coleraine which was surveyed and valued in 1858. It shows, in particular, the house and offices belonging to number 16 in the printed valuation. In the book it is presented as a double-page spread. Below is the left hand side of the page. The right-hand side of the page is shown on the next page. Note that I have inserted the numbers in red which match it to the left-hand side of the page. 9

This detailed information was used to calculate the overall valuation of the buildings which made up a property, which was then entered in the printed version of the Valuation which was published in 1859. Note that the valuers used a similar code for describing the age and condition of the buildings [1B, 1C, etc.] that was used in the earlier [Townland] Valuation of the 1830s, i.e. 1 meant that a building was slated, A, B and C denoted the age and condition of a building. The length [frontage] and breadth [depth] and height of the building were also recorded. However, the measurements relating to the frontage and depth of buildings were now in yards rather than feet as in the earlier 1832 Valuation. Note also that the height of buildings was now given by the number of floors or storeys [1, 1 1/2 and 2, etc.] rather than in feet and inches. In many cases the valuers would add comments which never appeared in the printed version of 1859. Note that the original numbering on this page is 18, 19 & 20 identifying three separate elements within this building. These three numbers were then stroked out and the three parts of this building are grouped under the number 16. It is the number 16 which is used in the 1859 printed version. 10

This kind of information is available for most streets in Coleraine and for most of the streets in Magherafelt, Limavady, Dungiven and Londonderry. The detailed information is normally not available for townlands in the rural areas, but the valuers' comments are. I have databased all of the information on the houses in Church Street, Coleraine and William Street, Londonderry and you can access these databases through the Barony of North East Liberties of Coleraine and the Barony of North West Liberties of Londonderry links in the right-hand menu. I also found these Val/2/B books useful for rural areas when studying the family of Samuel Long. This family is the subject of a case study on the CD. I thought that Samuel Long would probably be living in the townland of Drumadreen between Dungiven and Limavady. Below is a copy of a page [PRONI: VAL/2/B/5/20B] relating to holdings Nos. 7 and 8 in the townland. This copy is difficult to read at this scale, but if you zoom it to 200% it is certainly readable. The page shows that the original valuation of the townland took place in August 1856. At that time Samuel Long and his two cottiers Arthur Begley and John Brolly were listed against property number 7. Although it is clear from the statement Offices & land against Samuel Long s name, he was not living on the property. Before the field book was printed in August 1858 the valuer revised number 7. The names of Samuel Long and his cottiers were stroked out and the name of the new occupier, Joseph Hunter, inserted. You can read more about this in the Samuel Long case study in the right-hand menu. When I looked at other pages in the VAL/2/B books for the barony of Keenaght I found many similar amendments to the original names against a holding; clear evidence that it is worth looking at the manuscript books. Incidentally, these manuscript books are organised by Barony and Parish, unlike the later Griffith s Revision Books which are organised by Poor Law Union and District Electoral Division [DED]. Copyright 2009 W. Macafee. 11