The connection of the people named below with Morchard Bishop lies in the fact that in the return of Owners of Land (1873), they gave Morchard Bishop as their address. This does not imply that all of the land owned by them lay in the Parish of Morchard Bishop.
White's Directory of 1878 gives the acreage of the parish as 7088 and names other landowners who did not give Morchard Bishop as the place of their principle residence and therefore do not appear in the list below.
Nonetheless, the list includes the names of a number of people who would have considered themselves to be persons of substance in their local community, most of whom would have been able to live fairly comfortably on the income from their rents.
The list was prepared as a valuation for calculating the Parish Rate and Poor Rate payable on each property.* Owners of land less than 1 acre were not included nor were holders of Long (99 year) Leases. Valuation, based on gross estimated rental, was carried out at local level and was largely a matter of guesswork, there being no standardisation of approach to valuation across the county. Waste and Common land was not included.
*Property valuation remains to the present time the basis of assessment for raising money to be spent locally - known today as Council Tax. |