Griffith's valuation

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Griffith's valuation was a survey of Ireland completed in 1868.

Richard John Griffith in 1825 was appointed by Government to carry out a boundary survey of Ireland, by marking the boundaries of every county, barony, parish and townland in preparation for the first Ordnance Survey. He completed this 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; the Act was passed in 1826, and he was appointed Commissioner of Valuation in 1827, but did not commence work in this capacity until 1830 when the ne 6" maps, essential to the project, became available form the Ordnance survey. He served as Commissioner until 1868, during which period he also held a number of other public appointments, most notably, that of Chairman of the Board of Works. Griffith conducted two major valuation surveys. First, came the townland valuation, which was completed in the 1840s and second came the more detailed tenement survey which valed each individual property separately for the first time. The tenement valuations of County dublin were the first to be published on 5th May, 1853 and the last were the valuations of county Armagh on 1st June, 1865.

It was in Scotland that he first started to value land and spent two years in 1806-07 valuing terrain through the examination of soils and strata. In this manner, he became familiiar, with what he called 'the Scotch system of valuation' and it was a modified version of this that he intoduced into Ireland when he assumed the Office of Commissioner of Valuation.