Charles, born in 1832, served in the British Army, 39th Foot. In 1873, after his retirement from the army, he moved to Lough Mask House, owned by Lord Erne. The Lord Erne owned a lot of land, 40,386 Acres in Ireland. The Earl appointed Charles a land agent for 1500 acres, to recover the rent from the farmers who used the land.
Charles would earn 10% of the total rent due to Lord Erne. Charles, whose full name was Charles Cunningham Boycott, would become quite wealthy himself.
The year 1880 had seen a poor harvest. The farmers who had been renting the land were not able to produce enough due to the bad harvest. The farmers, led by Father O’Malley, had requested that the rent be lowered, keeping in mind the lower harvest. In August 1880, the farmers went on a strike to reduce the rent. Charles agreed to reduce the rent by 10% on account of the poor harvest. All except for two tenants wanted a 25% reduction.
Charles said that he had written to Lord Erne, but the Lord had refused to accede. He issued notices for the rent due and told them they would be evicted if they did not pay the rent.
The next step was the serve the eviction notice, and after the third farmer, the fourth refused to accept the notice and waved a red flag to let the rest of the farmers know that eviction notices were to be served.
After refusing to accept the notice, the farmers made all of the servants who worked at the Boycott Estate quit their jobs. Boycott was left taking care of his entire estate all by himself.
According to James Redpath, the verb "to boycott" was coined by Father O'Malley in a discussion between them on 23 September 1880. The following is Redpath's account:
I said, "I'm bothered about a word."
"What is it?" asked Father John.
"Well," I said, "When the people ostracise a land-grabber we call it social excommunication, but we ought to have an entirely different word to signify ostracism applied to a landlord or land-agent like Boycott. Ostracism won't do – the peasantry would not know the meaning of the word – and I can't think of any other."
"No," said Father John, "ostracism wouldn't do."
He looked down, tapped his big forehead, and said: "How would it do to call it to Boycott him?"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott
In November 1880, it was reportedly printed in the Birmingham Daily Post. In the same year, The Illustrated London News described how “to Boycott” had already become an active verb. In 1888 it was included the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which would go on to become the Oxford English Dictionary.