Tithe, Freeholders, and lease by lives

Freeholders were those entitled to vote by virtue of owning property (ie having the freehold or a lifetime lease).  The freeholders list was in effect an electoral register. The right to vote at that time was based on how much a person’s property was worth. The rates varied over the years but in the 1700s it was property with a rental value of £2 (40 shillings) per annum and in 1829 that went up to £10. They were often known as 40 shilling freeholders. 

Only a very small percentage of the population had a vote at that time (due to this property value requirement). The US, Australia & Canada reportedly also used this same system at one time to determine a person’s right to vote.

A 3 lives lease lasted till all the 3 people named in it had died, or till the lease expired, whichever came first. It was not normal to add a second name when someone died because that would defeat the whole arrangement. The lease would then last indefinitely. However you do sometimes see one of the 3 lives being changed. This was often because that person was emigrating. If they were emigrating it would become very difficult to find out if they were alive or not, so switching to someone living locally or someone very famous eg Royalty overcame that issue. (Royalty were popular because it was assumed they’d live a long time). Swapping one of the lives required the landlord’s consent.  It was a legal agreement and so had to be changed formally.

When all 3 people had died, that was the end of the lease. When the lease reached it’s expiry date or ended due to all 3 being dead, whoever was still on the property eg the last tenant’s son, would usually contact the landlord to negotiate a new lease. By and large if they were up to date with the rent, that would have been fairly straightforward.

As far as I am aware, a freeholder only got 1 vote, and so if the same name appears more than once on the Freeholder’s list, it’s probably a different person. 

Senior & junior were generally only used when there were 2 people of the same name in the same townland, so as to avoid confusion. According to an article on Griffiths Valuation by James R. Reilly CGRS, of Salt Lake City:

“Junior – senior” appears to be the most commonly utilized agnomen. Black's Law Dictionary: Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern (by Henry Campbell Black. St. Paul, MN, 4th ed., 1968) defines "'junior as a convenient distinction between a father and son of the same name." Occasionally either "junior" or "senior" is omitted. It is the author’s contention that the singular use country-wide of "junior-senior" to distinguish between individuals, in spite of the array of other agnomens available in each geographical locality, is a strong affirmation of a "father-son" relationship”.