May Street, Belfast, 1881

The selling off of the Irish Lands in 1881

The maiden name of Harriett Robinson was Harriett Wombwell. She was born in St. George in the East, London in 1804, and died in Bow in 1870. In her will, she instructed her solicitors to sell off her holdings in County Down, Ireland and distribute the proceeds between her eight surviving grandchildren and the two grandchildren of her deceased grand-daughter, Catherine West Carter. It took ten years for the lands to reach the auction house, as the lawyers prevaricated, and struggled to ascertain the exact boundaries of the lands in question. Over the years, it seems that various tenants had made some subtle readjustments...