ABSTRACT
The Bessborough commission, set up by William Ewart Gladstone's government in 1880 to investigate the Irish land question, received many complaints—some legitimate, others baseless—of both excessive rents and exorbitant increases in rent. The 1870 land act also attempted to encourage another distinctive feature of the Ulster custom—the right of 'free sale'. Estate agents in nineteenth-century Ireland traditionally enjoyed a much greater measure of autonomy in the management of landed property than did their counterparts in England. Although members of the legal profession were less involved in estate management than might have been expected, at least before 1850, there was an increasing tendency to appoint lawyers as land agents, especially from the 1870s. As in other businesses, so too in land agency, family succession was common; sons followed their fathers as agents on many estates. A significant shift in attitudes towards leases occurred on many estates after the famine.
