[f. TENANT sb. + RIGHT sb.] In general sense, The right that a person has as a tenant (of any kind). With special applications varying in time and place, as a. the right of a customary tenant: see quot. 1886; b. the right of a tenant at will or for a term of years to compensation for unexhausted improvements: c. the right of a tenant at will to sell his interest and goodwill to the incoming tenant. Ulster tenant-right: see quot. 1878.
1542. Richmond Wills (Surtees), 27. Item I gyve and bewheth mye hole tityll and tenandright off my howse and farmehold…, aftere my decesse, unto Thomas Borowe.
1596. Calr. Border Pap., II. 134. The said tenantes hould the seuerall landes and tenementes aforesaid by a custumary estate, which they call and claime to be, Tennant right.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low C. Warres, 906. There is extant a Charter … which grants to the Earl of Holland, to possess as his own Free-hold, what before he enjoy’d but by a kind of Tenant-Right.
a. 1734. North, Lives (1826), I. 289. In Cumberland the people had joined in…, pretending a tenant-right; which, there is a customary estate, not unlike our copyholds.
1778. Phil. Surv. S. Irel., 315. So it is with us, where the present occupier is supposed to have a tenant-right.
1851. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., I. 519. The tenant-right of the beneficiary or feudal vassals.
1868. T. Hughes, Sp. Ho. Com., in Morn. Star, 13 March. Tenant right was really an immemorial custom prevailing in a great portion of Ireland, but unrecognised yet in courts of law, or statute books, under which the ordinary tenant at will has acquired the right of selling the succession to his holding.
1874. Stubbs, Const. Hist. (1875), I. iii. 52. The practice of careful husbandry demanded for the cultivator a tenant-right in his allotment.
1878. Jevons, Prim. Pol. Econ., x. 93. Tenant right, which consists in giving the tenant a right to claim the value of any unexhausted improvements, which he may have made in his farm, if he be turned out of it. Ibid. Tenant right … has existed for a long time in the north of Ireland, where it is called the Ulster tenant right. A new tenant there pays the old tenant a considerable sum of money for the privilege of getting a good farm with various improvements.
1880. Ld. Dufferin, in Times, 4 Jan. (1881), 4/4. Under the Act of 1879, if the landlord buys up the tenant-right of a farm, it is declared to be extinguished for ever.
1886. H. Hall, Soc. Eliz. Age, App. i. 154. The customary tenants enjoy [in 1583] the ancient custom called tenant-right: namely, ‘To have their messuages and tenements to them during their lives, and after their deceases to the eldest issues of their bodies lawfully begotten.
attrib. 1713. Act 12 Anne, Stat. I. c. 2 § 49. Copies of Admittances to Custom-Right, or Tenant-Right Estates, not being Copyhold, which pass by Deed, Surrender, and Admittance.
Hence Tenant-righter (colloq.), an advocate or supporter of tenant-right.
1865. Morn. Star, 13 March. Mr. Greer, you are aware, is a great tenant-righter, and in the palmy days of the League he occupied a prominent place in that body.
1886. Pall Mall G., 4 Oct., 8/1. Recognized as a prominent representative of his class in the North and as a strong tenant-righter.
