Return of Owners of Land, 1873

The Return of Owners of Land, 1873 presents the first complete picture of the distribution of landed property in the British Isles since the original Domesday Book dating from 1086. The 1873 Return is also sometimes referred to as the "Modern Domesday". It arose from the desire of the Victorian governing landed classes, many of whom sat in the House of Lords, to counter the rising public clamour encouraged by some parts of the press about what was called the "monopoly of land." Karl Marx (d.1883) had been resident in London since 1849 and had published his Capital in 1867 thus influencing political thought on the Continent and consequently prompting a concerned British Establishment to rapidly extinguish any spark of revolutionary sentiment in the United Kingdom.

Many perceived exaggerations and false assertions had been made by the opponents of the landed classes as to the over-concentration of land ownership within a ruling elite, and reliable and independent data was needed to refute the attacks. The question was put in the House of Lords on 19 February 1872 by Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (1826–1893) to the Lord Privy Seal "Whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps for ascertaining the number of proprietors of land and houses in the United Kingdom, with the quantity of land owned by each proprietor". The government was in agreement with the suggestion and indeed Lord Derby's question had been a mere pre-arranged formality to start the process.

In 1872 Local Government Boards were ordered to compile a list of owners of land from ratings records. One return was prepared for England and Wales, excluding the Metropolis, and separate ones were prepared for Scotland in 1874, and Ireland in 1876. The Return shows the holding, in acres, roods and poles, and estimated yearly rental, of all holdings over 1 acre. It is laid out by county and landowner with a principal identifying address being given for each landowner. In the case of landowners with extensive and scattered holdings the address may not correspond to the location of the land and could be outside the county in question. The location of the land owned is not given. A comparison with the Domesday Book survey was made in the Return's Explanatory Statement (see section below). The 1873 Return was not without inaccuracies, sometimes very significant, and a revised and corrected edition was published in 1883 by John Bateman FRGS (1839–1910) entitled: The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland.

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