The significance of the nationalist response to the Irish land act of 1903

Abstract

The Irish land act of 1903, commonly known as the Wyndham act, was the most significant achievement of George Wyndham’s term as chief secretary for Ireland. From the time of his appointment in 1900 Wyndham made the formulation of such a bill a first priority for himself and for his principal advisers. His private correspondence, especially that with Arthur Balfour, reveals how determined he was that it should provide, not the stop-gap measure of earlier legislation, but an effective and final solution to the vexed problem of land occupancy in Ireland. In the end, however, the draft legislation owed less to the efforts of Wyndham and his advisers than to his shrewdness in allowing to a conference between landlord and tenant representatives the scope to evolve an agreed solution in line with guiding principles which he had previously enunciated. The resulting act provided the basis for tenant farmers to secure the ownership of their farms, so bringing to an end the land war that had raged in Ireland since the late 1870s.