19th Century Property Manager Charles Boycott, The Father Of All Boycotts
The act of people ceasing to support an entity because they don’t like what they are doing or stand for officially began with one man in Ireland
As a society, when we come across something we don’t like, or it offends us, a typical action taken is to shun it. In other words, boycotting. Like everything else, drilling down through history leads to a singular point of origin. In this case, boycots can be attributed to one man — Charles Boycott.
Boycott was born in England in 1832. Originally his name was spelled “Boycatt,” but the spelling was changed by the family in 1841. Following a short stint in the military, he sold the commission that his family had originally purchased for him. In 1852, he leased a 2,100 acre farm on Achill Island in Ireland with his new wife Anne, renting out small parcels to poor farmers. It was enough to bring him financial success.
While Boycott found a good living on Achill Island, he also sometimes encountered business resistance when he proved to be a tough operator. This resulted in multiple instances of lawsuits where he stuck to his guns and gained a reputation for being tough and doing things his own way, no matter the law or if he was…
