The Gentry & the Landed Gentry

Does anyone know the criteria for being listed in (the old) Burke's
Landed Gentry?

1) Was there a minimum acreage required?

Eve McLaughlin...

said to be 1000 acres, not a measly 999.

myths...

I'm not sure about Burke, but I dimly (I was very young) recollect
being told in the 1950s that in the 1940s one of the Landed Gentry
compliers reduced the necessary acreage.

Eve McLaughlin...

yes - the 1000 acre estate was by then pretty rare, but the families
continued (if only in a semi-detached in Erdington).

myths...

Certainly that was the attitude for Burke's "Irish Families" in the
1970s - enabling them to include families that used to be, but were no
longer (any of ??) Irish Landed Gentry.

The change of acreage that I recall was to something still noticeably
larger than a smallholding, but the reduction enabled some families to
become, for the first time, "Landed Gentry" - making at least one man
very happy .

2) Did the land have to be owned rather than leased?

Eve McLaughlin...

normally

3) Did there have to be a "seat"?

Eve McLaughlin...

well, somewhere no doubt, but not always where the main landholding
was.

Any ideas?

andrew...

Stephen -

You may care to look at
explain the Victorian concept of a gentleman.

Yours Aye Andrew Sellon
If you desire the common people to treat you as a gentleman, you must
conduct yourself as a gentleman should do to them. Rev. Sydney Smith
1771-1854, Canon of St. Paul's.

Yours aye