ABSTRACT
The Country Landowners’ Association is an organization of owners, not landlords. The distinction is central to the Association’s strategy and achievements. The Association took a large part of the credit for securing the Crichel Down inquiry of 1954, and for helping to reverse the post-war tendency towards state land acquisition. The 1947 Agriculture Act which took so much from landowners at least gave them a statutory right to consultation, and during the Labour period a strictly formal approach seemed also the wisest tactics. Landowners have been prominent on important public bodies such as the Forestry Commission and the Agricultural Land Commission, and upon numerous official committees where they often act as chairmen. The agricultural landlord is conventionally thought of as the owner of a fair-sized estate, and both the social traditions and the economic advantages of landownership are associated with estates of this kind.
