Collection LE14 - Wade Papers

104 items

Letters relating to the management of the lands of the Wade family around Aughrim village in the early 1880s. The collection relates to the work of Gustavius Wade, a Dublin based solicitor. The material covers fears that his land agent had in relation to the Land League activities in the area, as well as more mundane matters such as land improvements and stock management. The collection also includes two letters from Rochford Wade to his mother, recounting events on his ranch in Texas, as well as giving advice on how to run the lands in Ireland.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The Wades were a long-established family of Cromwellian settlers (an ancestor was a Williamite general at the Battle of Aughrim), and they were related to a number of local families, including the Persses. The correspondence in this collection relates to the management of a number of farms held by the Wades near Aughrim. This was done primarily by Gustavius Wade, a Dublin based solicitor. Although only covering the years 1881 to 1882, the correspondence contains a lot of references to the troubled times of the Land League, and there are instances of the land-holding class to this issue in the collection.

Acquired by the James Hardiman Library in August 1999.

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE
The collection consists primarily of correspondence between Gustavius Wadae and a number of people. These include land agents, stock buyers, and tenants. There are two letters from Rochford Wade to his mother at the start of the collection, which deal with his life in Texas as well as giving advice on the management of lands in Ireland. The rest of the correspondence deals with the management of the estate, and correspondence with his tenants. The letters from his agent Laurence Story, reveal the worry surrounding the Land League and demand for fair rents from the tenants, but the bulk of the material deals with the day to day running of the farms. The material relating to the Loughnan eviction is also interesting, showing that other tenants were not slow to take up the land made available.

The material is accessible to all bone fide researchers, and subject to the conditions of access governing the consultation of archival material at the James Hardiman Library. For a full statement of the conditions, please see: http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/collections/archives/conditionsofaccess/
Open

Researchers must seek the written permission of the Archivist before publication of material from the archival holdings, and the source must be acknowledged.

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Catalog

15/04/2013
11/07/2025