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Rent warner

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  • 04-06-2016 4:56pm
    #1
    Fortywatt
    Registered Users Posts: 11 ✭


    Has anybody come across the term "rent warner" in the context of land holdings in the nineteenth century?

    It comes up in a report on a trial in the Irish Times in 1886:

    "The deceased was a respectable farmer of about 56 years of age. He had a farm of about 42 acres which he held for a Mr Hunt. Tobin, the prisoner, who lived near deceased's house, with his uncle, a Mr Cantwell, was rent warner to Mr Hunt."

    The farm in question was in Kilkenny.


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    #2
    spurious
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,130 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    This extract seems to indicate a rent warner was something like a strong-arm 'gentleman'.


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    #3
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    spurious wrote: »
    This extract seems to indicate a rent warner was something like a strong-arm 'gentleman'.

    Not quite. A rent-warner was the part-time occupation, the role of a person working for a landlord. It was usually a position occupied by a ‘respected and trusted’ individual in the land management hierarchy, usually (?) done by an estate employee such as the head stockman/herd or the gamekeeper, or sometimes by a good tenant. The warner was a guy who kept tabs on what was happening in the tenanted farms and kept the landlord or his agent informed on who would probably default on rent, who would tell a cottier that he needed to prepare for a Gale Day, etc. Generally they were regarded by the cottier/small farmer class as informers and spies, only one remove above bailiffs, process servers and keepers. (i.e. in times of strife/unrest they did not go out at night and kept the shutters closed. )


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