

PRO FREE GRATIS AND FOR NOTHING "RECORDS INFORMATION" LEAFLET
[Note: this and all other PRO Records Information leaflets are
Crown Copyright, but may be freely reproduced except for sale or
advertising purposes. Please respect this]
**********************************
Leaflet no 56
TAX RECORDS AS A SOURCE FOR LOCAL AND FAMILY HISTORY c.1198-1698

The surviving records of the assessment and collecting of a number
of central government taxes levied on the monarch's lay subjects in
England from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries and in
Wales in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are held at
Chancery Lane mainly in the class of records with the reference E
179, which also includes records of comparable taxes on clerics.
Lists are available in the Round Room and the Long Room. They are
arranged by pre-1974 English and Welsh counties, the records
relating to each being listed in chronological order under the
county heading. There are additional sections covering records
relating to the Cinque Ports; Royal Households, Nobility and
Official; Divers Counties and Miscellaneous; and Unknown Counties.
Each entry in the list gives the reference number of the document;
its exact or approximate date, if known, in regnal years; the area
covered, usually a whole county or specified parts of it; the type
of document and the kind of tax to which it relates; and the number
of membranes or folios it contains with, in appropriate cases, an
indication that the item is damaged or incomplete. Many items
listed do not include the names of individual taxpayers, only names
of places and sums of money; those which do are identified by the
inclusion the word NAMES in the description.

Where a document deals only with part of a county it is described
in terms of the ancient local government divisions, mainly hundreds
and wapentakes, which it covers. If you do not know within which of
those divisions a particular place lies, you should check by
looking it up in either Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England
or Topographical Dictionary of Wales, or in the index to the 1851
census; copies are available in the Round Room. It is in any case
a useful aid to searching to know which hundred or other division
a place is in, since it is by such divisions that the assessments
are normally arranged. The first volume of the list of clerical
subsidies includes a table of the lay taxes levied between 1198 and
1698. The calendar year equivalents of the regnal years used in the
lists can be ascertained by use of the Handbook of Dates.

TAX RECORDS IN PRINT.
The easiest way to check whether a particular record has been
printed is to use E. L C. Mullins, Texts and Calendars: An
Analytical Guide to Serial Publications (Royal Historical Society,
1958), which covers publications to 1957, and Texts and Calendars
II (1983), which continues coverage to 1982. Copies are available
on the searchroom shelves, where copies of some of the editions
will also be found.

LAY SUBSIDIES

Lay subsidies were taxes assessed on the moveable, personal wealth
of the laity, on the value of their crops and stock rather than
their land and buildings, although the Tudor subsidy marked a
partial departure from that principle. Subsidies were granted to
the monarch by parliament in statutes which specified what
proportion of the subject's wealth was to be paid in tax, after
agreed exemptions had been made; in 1327, for example, it was a
twentieth. The history of subsidies and their records may usefully
be divided into several periods.

******************************
Early Subsidies to 1332

Before 1290 very few lists of the names of individual taxpayers
survive. Nearly all those that do are in print, but in any case
only a handful of subsidies were levied before the last years of
the thirteenth century. They then become far more numerous, with
grants being made in sixteen of the years between 1290 and 1332.
Assessments relating to a number of counties have been printed; by
far the greatest number survive for the subsidies of 1327 and 1332.

Fifteenths and Tenths, 1334 to 1623

In 1334 the government ceased to make a new assessment for each
subsidy and adopted a system of fixed quotas on individual
townships. Those quotas endured for three centuries. The subsidies
were granted as multiples of a fifteenth on most taxpayers and a
tenth on those living in boroughs or on ancient demesne of the
crown, and each subsidy consisted of a fixed sum. The assessments
therefore give only the names of the townships paying tax, not
those of the individual taxpayers. The names of the places included
in the assessment of 1334 are given in R. E. Glasscock, ed. THE LAY
SUBSIDY OF 1334.

Tudor Subsidies

The government of Henry VIII introduced a new form of subsidy
alongside the fifteenth and tenth. It had a new basis, using three
alternative assessments of a taxpayer's capacity: capital value of
property, landed income or wages. The assessments give the names of
individual taxpayers and indicate on which of the three bases their
payments were assessed; the earlier assessments, in particular
those of 1524 to 1527 and 1543 to  1544, give excellent lists of
the taxpaying inhabitants of particular villages and towns.

POLL TAXES

Poll taxes were taxes on heads, with everyone above a certain age
and not otherwise exempt being liable to pay. They therefore
affected a far greater proportion of the population than subsidies,
so the records give the names of far more individuals and a
substantially higher proportion of women. Sometimes they were
assessed at a flat rate per head, more often on a graduated scale
to take account of ability to pay. They were significant only in
two periods:


1377 to 1381

In 1377 a poll tax at a fixed rate of a groat (4d.) per head was
granted by parliament. The only exceptions were persons under 14
years of age and beggars, including the orders of mendicant clergy.
Further poll taxes were imposed in 1379, on a graduated scale, and
in 1381, at a flat rate of 1s. but with a general provision for the
wealthy to assist others to pay. The third tax provoked the
Peasants' Revolt and led to the abandonment of poll taxes for a
long period. The levies of 1379 and 1381 are known to have been
widely evaded, so the records of the tax of 1377 are generally
regarded as the most satisfactory. Most of the documents from the
first tax consist of receipts which give only the numbers of
taxpayers in a particular place, not their names, although there
are lists of names for some towns. The assessments of 1379 do give
the names and occupations of many taxpayers, and the records of
that year and 1381 are of greater value for tracing individuals
while those of 1377 offer better evidence for the size of the
population. A useful illustrated introduction to the records is
given by M. W. Beresford in THE AMATEUR HISTORIAN, vol.III, pp.271-
78.

1641 to 1698

Apart from some levies solely on aliens during the fifteenth
century no poll taxes were imposed between 1381 and 1641, when the
method was revived as an expedient to pay off an army. Under
Charles II graduated poll taxes were collected in 1660, 1667 (on a
percentage basis) and 1678. The government of William III levied a
number between 1689 and 1698, when they finally ceased.  A number
of assessments and related documents survive for all the poll taxes
of 1641 to 1678, and a few for those of the 1690s. In strongly
Catholic areas like Lancashire, a poll tax on recusants was
sometimes levied in conjunction with a subsidy and recorded in the
same documents.

THE HEARTH TAX

A tax on domestic hearths, collected twice yearly at Michaelmas and
Lady Day, was imposed in 1662 after the restoration of Charles II
and abolished after the deposition of James II in 1689. It was
levied on all householders, although exceptions were claimed on
account of poverty, so the surviving assessments and lists of those
exempt include the names of a significant proportion of the
population. It also gives some indication of their relative wealth,
since the size of their dwellings bears a rough relationship to the
number of hearths at which the taxpayers were assessed. Addresses
are not given, so particular dwellings can only be identified if
their occupants at the time are known.
For most of the period of the tax its collection was not audited by
the exchequer, so in general only assessments from the years 1662
to 1666 and 1669 to 1674 are found among the public records. There
are, however, a few from other years, and records of the tax may
also be found among quarter sessions records in local record
offices. The best short guide to the records is the introduction to
the catalogue of THE HEARTH TAX 1662-89: EXHIBITION OF RECORDS
(1962), by C. A. F. Meekings. A number of county record societies
have printed volumes of hearth tax assessments, particularly in
recent years. For a guide to the surviving documents, county by
county, with brief descriptions, and including those found outside
the Public Record Office, see J. S. W. Gibson, THE HEARTH TAX AND
OTHER LATER STUART TAX LISTS (Federation of Family History
Societies, 1985).

MONTHLY ASSESSMENTS
During the civil war, which began in 1642, parliament introduced a
form of tax called a monthly assessment, whereby a sum decided in
advance was divided among the different counties according to their
relative wealth, leaving the tax commissioners in each county
responsible for assessing payments at such a rate as to produce the
amount required in each month. That new form of levy continued
throughout the Commonwealth period and after the Restoration until
1680. Some of the assessments survive in E 179, and there are some
others in SP 28/196-204.

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE RELIEF OF DISTRESSED PROTESTANTS IN IRELAND

In 1642 parliament authorised the collection of loans and free
gifts to provide relief for settlers suffering as a result of the
Irish rebellion of 1641 and to pay a force to suppress the
rebellion. Some lists of contributors are in E 179, and there are
more in SP 28/191-195. For a general indication of the amount of
material surviving for each county, see C. Webb, 'The Collection
for Distressed Protestants in Ireland, 1642', GENEALOGISTS'
MAGAZINE, vol. XXI, pp.313-315.

FREE AND VOLUNTARY PRESENT

In 1661, when the restoration financial settlement was incomplete,
parliament voted Charles II a ' free and voluntary present' as a
temporary expedient. Lists of contributors drawn up by local
commissioners survive for many counties.

ENROLLED AND DECLARED ACCOUNTS
The overall figures for a particular tax accounted for at the
exchequer will be found in E 359 (to 1641, and 1661 to 1663) and E
360 (1640 onwards). The accounts do not often include the names of
individual taxpayers, but they do give figures for sums raised from
particular counties, boroughs and other areas. Their survival rate
is higher than for the subsidiary documents described earlier.


Crown Copyright, January 1986
