Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act 1903
Under pressure from both government, UIL and IPP, the Chief Secretary for Ireland - George Wyndham gave his backing to a Land Conference in December 1902, comprising four moderate landlord representatives led by Lord Dunraven and four tenant representatives led by William O'Brien, the others John Redmond, T. W. Russell (who spoke for Ulster tenant-farmers) and T. C. Harrington. They worked out a new scheme for tenant land purchase, sale was to be made not compulsory, but attractive to both parties, based on the government paying the difference between the price offered by tenants and that demanded by landlords. This was the basis of the Wyndham Act – the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act (1903) – which O’Brien orchestrated through parliament.
It differed from earlier legislation which initially advanced to tenants the sum necessary to purchase their holdings, repayable over a period of years on terms determined by an independent commission, while the Wyndham Act finished off landlordism control over tenants and made it easier for tenants to purchase land, facilitating the transfer of about 9 million acres (36,000 km2) up to 1914. By then 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords under the 1903 Act and the later Augustine Birrell Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1909 which extended the 1903 Act by allowing for the compulsory purchase of tenanted farmland by the Land Commission, but fell far short in its financial provisions. In all, under these pre-1921 Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to 11.5 million acres (47,000 km2) out of a total of 20 million acres (81,000 km2) in the country.
The Acts provided Irish tenant farmers with more rights than tenant farmers in the rest of the United Kingdom. Munster tenants availed of land purchase in exceptionally high numbers, encouraged by their Irish Land and Labour Association’s leader D. D. Sheehan after he and O'Brien established an Advisory Committee to mediate between landlords and tenants on purchase terms which produced a higher take-up of land purchase than in any other province.
Read more about this topic: Irish Land Acts
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