The personal wealth of Northern Ireland 1920-1960

Abstract

The main object of this paper is to build up estimates of personal wealth in Northern Ireland, in order to chart the material progress of its inhabitants during the past forty years. To this end, wherever possible, comparisons will be drawn with similar estimates for the Irish Republic and for Great Britain. A further, although subsidiary, object will be to give a brief account of how these personal wealth statistics have been compiled. Such calculations are of necessity highly complex and technical, and will therefore be described here only to the extent necessary to bring out the chief problems involved, as well as the limitations of the figures in the present state of our knowledge. In order to dispose of these problems of estimation before coming on to the main task of presenting and interpreting the results, the section which immediately follows will comprise a critical description of the "death duties" method of calculating personal wealth. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to an examination of personal wealth estimates for selected years during the period, first of all as aggregate data (in per capita and real terms as well as in absolute terms) and then sub-divided into various categories, namely the situation of the wealth, its component assets, and its distribution by numbers and values between various broad capital-owning groups.