‘Landlord Careless’? Landowners, Tenants and Agriculture on Four Estates in West Wales, 1850–75

Abstract

This article draws on a number of documents – mainly rent books, diaries, letters, and contracts – to investigate landlords whose estates came in at the lower end of the ‘Great Landowner’ category; a hitherto neglected area of investigation because most studies like those of David Howell and R. J. Moore-Colyer focus on larger estates. The materials examined allow tentative judgements about a group which has been vilified in the historiography of the subject. The three topics dealt with in the piece – touch on issues which transcend regional/national boundaries and encompass problems of wider economic and social significance, thus contributing to the broader historiography of landlord-tenant relations.