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Griffith's Valuation was a boundary and land valuation survey of Ireland completed in 1868.

Griffith's background

Richard John Griffith started to value land in Scotland, where he spent two years in 1806-1807 valuing terrain through the examination of its soils. He used 'the Scotch system of valuation' and it was a modified version of this that he introduced into Ireland when he assumed the position of Commissioner of Valuation.

Tasks in Ireland

In 1825 Griffith was appointed by the British Government to carry out a boundary survey of Ireland. He was to mark the boundaries of every county, barony, civil parish, and townland in tandem with the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland. He completed the boundary work in 1844. He was also called upon to assist in the preparation of a Parliamentary bill to provide for the general valuation of Ireland. This act was passed in 1826 and Griffith was appointed Commissioner of Valuation in 1827, but did not start work until 1830 when the new 6-inch Ordnance Survey maps required by the statute became available.

Griffith served as Commissioner until 1868, when he was succeeded by Sir John Ball Greene, who took charge of the ongoing revisions of the valuation on an annual basis. Griffith also served as Chairman of the Board of Works. He conducted two major valuation surveys. First was the townland valuation, which was completed in the 1840s and which took the townland as the geographical unit of valuation. The second and more extensive was the tenement survey which valued individual property separately for the first time and which also valued all buildings in the townland for the first time, whereas only the larger houses, principally those of the gentry, had been valued in the first valuation. The tenement valuations of County Dublin were the first to be published on 5 May 1853 and the last were the valuations of County Armagh on 1 June 1865.

Contemporary use of and dates of valuation

The valuation is a vital document in genealogical research, since in the absence of census records in Ireland before 1901 the valuation records in many ways can act as a substitute. Many of these records were also digitised and made readily available to the public online as part of the Ask about Ireland and Cultural Heritage Project initiative. It is helpful in this to know the precise dates when the individual county components of the survey were completed, as follows:

References

1. "Griffith's Valuation. What It Is, and When and How It ... Made". Chicago Daily Tribune. January 15, 1881. "Griffith's Valuation" is a phrase not often heard (but not always understood) ... reference to Irish affairs--the tenant ... of the South and West of Ireland having ... most unanimously resolved not pay ... above the rate fixed by "Griffith's valuation." The origin of the term dates ... nearly fifty years.
2. "Guide to the archives of the Valuation Office". National Archives (Ireland). Retrieved 22 September 2024.
3. "Scoping study for development of on-line heritage materials for the primary school sector, p.11" (PDF). Heritage Council (Ireland). Retrieved 22 September 2024.
4. Fitz Gerald, James F. V., Esq. (1881). "XVI: Of the Ordnance or Griffith's Valuation". A Practical Guide to the Valuation of Rent in Ireland. Dublin: E. Ponsonby. p. 105. Retrieved September 13, 2010. List of Counties and Cities, showing the Dates at which the Valuation of each was completed.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Search Griffith's Valuation at FailteRomhat.com
• Search Griffith's Valuation on Ask About Ireland website Archived 2010-08-21 at the Wayback Machine
• Is There More in Griffith's Valuation Than Just Names?

• 1868 in Ireland
• Historical geography of Ireland