An admission to Copyhold Property: Difference between revisions

The property holding of someone who was a manorial tenant was said to be ‘copyhold’ because their tenancy rights were set out in a copy of an entry of the court rolls of that manor, given out after a little ceremony of admission which took place either at a full sitting of the court or privately in a solicitor’s office. That copy and the entry on the roll were the only evidence the tenant had of his entitlement. As a result many a bundle of house deeds contains a series of admissions to the copyhold if the property at one time belonged to the local lord of the manor. See the article [[England Land and Property]].  

<br>The example of an admission to copyhold property given below is dated in 1750 and taken from a bundle of deeds for a house in a street known as Great Whyte at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. The house belonged, as the document starts by saying, to the ‘Manor of Ramsey with its Members in the County of Huntingdon’, and was the property of the Fellowes family of Ramsey Abbey, ancestors of the present Lord de Ramsey. It begins with a rather grand indication of the nature of this ancient court:<br>  

<br>The admission in 1810 mentions ‘Houses Outhouses Edifices Barns Stables Buildings Yards Gardens Orchards Ways Paths Passages Easements Common Rights Members Privileges and Appurtenances’ but that is probably a phrase designed to cover whatever may have been on the site.<br>  

John Nickless, by his will proved in 1829, left his wife Elizabeth then tenement in Great Whyte which was then in the occupation of himself, James Baldwin, Widow Woods and Isaac Barritt. He stipulated that this was to pass on her death to his daughter Hannah, the wife of James Bellamy, and on Hannah’s death to her son William Bellamy. William was then under the age of twenty-one and he presumably reached that age or his mother died in 1850, when he was admitted tenant by the court.<br>  

All this shows the absolute freedom with which people could act with regard to much copyhold property by this time. It could be sub-let, mortgaged, bequeathed or sol, just like freehold land. Many properties held from manors were sub-let, but short sub-leases unfortunately do not normally appear on the court rolls. Yearly leases were very common and in many places a tenant could sub-let their copyholds for a maximum of three years without a licence from the lord, and up to twenty-one years with a licence. In each case there would be a fine, perhaps of a year’s quit-rent. Those who held small amounts of land, either freehold or copyhold, frequently used them to raise money to tide them over difficult times, and the mortgaging and re-mortgaging of land is frequently met with.<br>  

Many a street contained an extraordinary mix of freehold and copyhold premises, and although one hopes that their exact status may be mentioned, in a will for instance, this is often far from being the case. If no deeds exist it is always worthwhile, therefore, to consult the records of the local manorial court.<br>  

And so it was that tenancies which were in the Middle Ages held at little more than the will of the lord had, by long custom, by the sixteenth century generally acquired the character of a permanent inheritance, descending to the heir-at-law just as if they were freehold. In some places, however, especially in the ancient boroughs and in Kent, the custom of the manor decreed a somewhat different descent. Copyhold could be entailed and that entail could be broken by surrendering the property to the ‘will of the lord’. The main differences from freehold, apart perhaps from some restriction on leasing and mining, were the fines paid on the death of the holder, on the admission of his heir, and on the sale or the mortgage of the land.<br>  

The lord could, of course, at any time sell or grant away part of his manorial land (unless it were subject to some family settlement or entail) and thus free or ‘enfranchise’ it from further rent, fines or restrictions. The amount of copyhold land thus grew small over the years.<br>  

Copyhold was finally abolished by the Law of Property Act of 1922 which came into force on 1 January 1926, when all copyhold land became freehold, compensation for loss of fines and rents being paid where claimed. If the tenant still had rights to pasture cattle on the common or the lord had rights to mine under the land these were, however, not affected and may yet continue.<br>  

<br>Adapted with permission from an article by Anthony Camp, ‘It is found by the Homage … An admission to copyhold property’, in ''Family Tree Magazine'' (UK; http://www.family-tree.co.uk) vol. 19, no. 4 (February 2003) pages 4-6.<br>