bailiff. The dispute began when Boycott and Carr supported different sets of candidates in elections for the Board of Guardians to the Church Mission Estate, and Boycott's candidates won. Carr was also the local receiver of wrecks, which meant that he was entitled to collect the salvage from all shipwrecks in the area, and guard it until it was sold in a public auction. The local receiver had a right to a percentage of the sale and to keep whatever did not sell. In 1860 Carr wrote a letter to the Official Receiver of Wrecks stating that Boycott and his men had illegally broken up a wreck and moved the salvage to Boycott's property. In response to this accusation, Boycott sued Carr for libel and claimed £500 in damages. Life in Lough Mask before controversy In 1873, Boycott moved to Lough Mask House, owned by Lord Erne, four miles (6 km) from Ballinrobe in County Mayo. 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. Lord Erne also owned properties in Dublin. Boycott agreed to be Lord Erne's agent for he owned in County Mayo. One of Boycott's responsibilities was to collect rents from tenant farmers on the land, for which he earned of the total rent due to Lord Erne, which was £500 each year. In his roles as farmer and agent, Boycott employed numerous local people as labourers, grooms, coachmen, and house-servants. Joyce Marlow wrote that Boycott had become set in his mode of thought, and that his twenty years on Achill had "...strengthened his innate belief in the divine right of the masters, and the tendency to behave as he saw fit, without regard to other people's point of view or feelings." During his time in Lough Mask before the controversy began, Boycott had become unpopular with the tenants. He had become a magistrate and was an Englishman, which may have contributed to his unpopularity, but according to Marlow it was due more to his personal temperament. While Boycott himself maintained that he was on good terms with his tenants, they said that he had laid down many petty restrictions, such as not allowing