Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott (12 March 1832 – 19 June 1897) was an English land agent whose ostracism by his local community in Ireland gave the English language the term boycott. He had served in the British Army 39th Foot, which brought him to Ireland. After retiring from the army, Boycott worked as a land agent for Lord Erne, a landowner in the Lough Mask area of County Mayo.
In 1880, as part of its campaign for the Three Fs (fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale) and specifically in resistance to proposed evictions on the estate, local activists of the Irish National Land League encouraged Boycott's employees (including the seasonal workers required to harvest the crops on Lord Erne's estate) to withdraw their labour, and began a campaign of isolation against Boycott in the local community. This campaign included shops in nearby Ballinrobe refusing to serve him, and the withdrawal of services. Some were threatened with violence to ensure compliance.
Opposition to the campaign against Boycott became a in the British press after he wrote a letter to The Times. Newspapers sent correspondents to the West of Ireland to highlight what they viewed as the victimisation of a servant of a peer of the realm by Irish nationalists. Fifty Orangemen from County Cavan and County Monaghan travelled to Lord Erne's estate to harvest the crops, while a regiment of the 19th Royal Hussars and more than 1,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) were deployed to protect the harvesters. The episode was estimated to have cost the British government and others at least £10,000 to harvest about £500 worth of crops.
Boycott left Ireland on 1 December 1880, and in 1886, became land agent for Sir Hugh Adair's Flixton estate in Suffolk. He died at the age of 65 on 19 June 1897 in his home in Flixton, after an illness earlier that year.
Early life and family
thumb|alt=A church|St Mary's church at [[Burgh St Peter in Norfolk, where Boycott's father William Boycott was vicar, and where Charles Boycott is buried]]
Charles Cunningham Boycott was born on 12 March 1832 to Reverend William Boycatt and his wife Georgiana. He grew up in the village of Burgh St Peter in Norfolk, England;
Boycott was educated at a boarding school in Blackheath, London. He was interested in the military—and in 1848, entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in hopes of serving in the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners.
Boycott's regiment transferred to Belfast shortly after his arrival. Six months later, it was sent to Newry before marching to Dublin, where it remained for a year. He was ill between August 1851 and February 1852 and sold his commission the following year,
Life on Achill Island
thumb|alt=Charles Boycott's house on Achill Island. It is a large white house with two storeys. The mountainous terrain on the island is seen in the background.|The former house of Charles Boycott on Achill Island. The house has been modernised and renovated since Boycott's time.
After receiving an inheritance, Boycott was persuaded by his friend, Murray McGregor Blacker, a local magistrate, to move to Achill Island, a large island off the coast of County Mayo. McGregor Blacker agreed to sublet of land belonging to the Irish Church Mission Society on Achill to Boycott, who moved there in 1854.
Boycott was involved in a number of disputes while on Achill. The 3rd Earl of Erne was a wealthy Ulster landowner who lived at Crom Castle, a country house near Newtownbutler in the south-east of County Fermanagh. He owned of land in Ireland, of which 31,389 were in County Fermanagh, 4,826 in County Donegal, 1,996 in County Sligo, and 2,184 in County Mayo.
Lough Mask affair
Historical background
thumb|alt=Michael Davitt|right|[[Michael Davitt by Napoleon Sarony 1882]] thumb|alt=Charles Stewart Parnell|right|[[Charles Stewart Parnell ]]
In the nineteenth century, agriculture was the biggest industry in Ireland. In 1876, the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland commissioned a survey to find who owned the land in Ireland. The survey found that almost all land was the property of just 10,000 people, or 0.2 per cent of the population. In the 1870s, the Fenians tried to organise the tenant farmers in County Mayo to resist eviction. He asked the crowd, "What do you do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted?"
This speech set out the Land League's powerful weapon of social ostracism, which was first used against Charles Boycott. On 14 October of that year, Boycott wrote a letter to The Times about his situation: According to Becker, "Personally he is protected, but no woman in Ballinrobe would dream of washing him a cravat or making him a loaf. All the people have to say is that they are sorry, but that they 'dare not.
Saving the crops
In Belfast in early November 1880, The Boycott Relief Fund was established to arrange an armed expedition to Lough Mask.
William Edward Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland, made it clear in a communication with the proprietor of the Dublin Daily Express that he would not allow an armed expedition of hundreds of men, as the committee was planning, and that 50 unarmed men would be sufficient to harvest the crops. He said that the government would consider it their duty to protect this group. A carriage had been hired for the family, but no driver could be found for it, and an army ambulance and driver had to be used. in Parnell's words, "one shilling for every turnip dug from Boycott's land".
'Boycotting' had strengthened the power of the peasants, and by the end of 1880 there were reports of boycotting from all over Ireland. The events at Lough Mask had also increased the power of the Land League, and the popularity of Parnell as a leader. In December 1880, the Bessborough Commission, headed by The 6th Earl of Bessborough, recommended major land reforms, including the three Fs.
William Edward Forster argued that a Coercion Act—which would punish those who participated in events like those at Lough Mask, and would include the suspension of habeas corpus—should be introduced before any Land Act. The act set up the Irish Land Commission, a judicial body that would fix rents for a period of 15 years and guarantee fixity of tenure. The following is Redpath's account: Still in 1880, The Illustrated London News described how "To 'Boycott' has already become a verb active, signifying to 'ratten', to intimidate, to 'send to Coventry', and to 'taboo. In 1888, the word was included in the first volume of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (later known as The Oxford English Dictionary). The word also entered the lexicon of languages other than English, such as Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish and Russian. His arrival in New York generated a great deal of media interest; the New York Tribune said that, "The arrival of Captain Boycott, who has involuntarily added a new word to the language, is an event of something like international interest." The purpose of the visit was to see friends in Virginia, including Murray McGregor Blacker, a friend from his time on Achill Island who had settled in the United States. He had a passion for horses and racing, and became secretary of the Bungay race committee. More recently the story was the subject of the 2012 novel Boycott, by Colin C. Murphy.