Griffith's valuation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Griffith's valuation was a survey of Ireland completed in 1868. ^[1]

Richard John Griffith in 1825 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 preparation for the first Ordnance Survey. 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 he was appointed Commissioner of Valuation in 1827, but did not start work until 1830 when the new 6" maps, became available from the Ordnance survey. He served as Commissioner until 1868. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Works. Griffith conducted two major valuation surveys. First, was the townland valuation, which was completed in the 1840s and the second was the tenement survey which valued individual property separately for the first time. 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.

It was in Scotland that he first started to value land and 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 Office of Commissioner of Valuation.

[edit] References