After his father divided his estates with his sons in 1814, Széchenyi had to attend to matters of his estate, too. However, the young Hussar officer was not initially concerned with the matters of his estate. His former tutor, János Lunkányi (Liebenberg), was in charge of the matters of the estate as livestock manager.
Széchenyi received his entire inheritance of some 87,000 acres in January 1821, after his father’s death.
Széchenyi was forced to rationalise his management by the debts that he inherited and accumulated himself. In this spirit, he sold the greater part of his estate to his brothers and wished to farm the remainder in a modern way. He was left with the inalienable Pölöske feudal tenure and the manor in Cenk, totalling some 30,000acres. Most of his income from his estates, which were mainly in Sopron County, came not from the serfs’ services but from the production of his farms.
Széchenyi also sought to increase the share of non-agricultural activities in his income. He invested money in various commercial and industrial enterprises in the hope of making a profit. He was a shareholder in the First Danube Steamboat Shipping Company, which, after an initial high risk, brought a handsome profit to its shareholders. He also risked his own money in the joint-stock company which built and operated The Chain Bridge in Budapest as well as in the Balaton Steamship Company. He also invested money in the nascent domestic manufacturing industry by buying shares: in the József Rolling Mill in Pest, and he also held shares in savings banks as well as Austrian and French government bonds. Seeing the potential of Pest’s rapid urbanisation, he bought property there in the 1840s.
