Analysis of hearth tax assessments

ANALYIS OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE HEARTH TAX ASSESSMENTS, CHILFORD, RADFIELD, AND WHITTLESFORD HUNDREDS, 1661, 1666, AND 1674

Introductory Note

The following analyses have been prepared from the Cambridgeshire Hearth Tax Assessments preserved in the Public Record Office for 1662 Michaelmas [E 179/84/436], 1666 Lady Day [E 179/244/22], and 1674 Lady Day [E 179/244/23]. In addition, the 1664 Michaelmas Assessment [E 179/84/437], which was a revision of that of 1662 Michaelmas, has been used for recovering the details of hearths in some defective entries. The assessments have been fully described, and the nature of the tax and value of its records have been briefly discussed, in V.C.H. Cambs. iii. 500 and iv. 272. The 1662 lists were prepared by petty constables in June and early July 1662 and were designed to be simply lists of taxpayers, though during the next eighteen months many persons in the lists secured exemption. The 1666 lists were made out in the summer of 1666, after collection had taken place, by the officers of George Wilmot, the sub-farmer, and are drawn up under the headings of 'Paid' and 'Unpaid'; many of the persons with one or two hearths included under the latter heading may have been entitled to exemption, but the lists do not indicate them since they were included as taxpayers in default. The lists for 1674 were made out by the sub-collectors of Edward Miller, the receiver, with the assistance of parish officials, during the spring and summer of 1674, after collection had been made. They are divided into taxpayers and those legally exempt by certificate. The exemption certificates themselves, made out during the winter of 1673–4, survive incomplete and heavily damaged [E 179/326/10]. Among the taxpayers the owners of empty or recently destroyed houses or hearths and the occupiers of houses recently built or with new hearths in them are distinguished. The exempt may include paupers, even though they did not need to be certified.

The three documents have been analysed on the same principle. Against each place is given, in separate columns, the total of entries recording persons as occupiers of from one to ten hearths and a further column gives the occupiers of houses with eleven or more hearths: final columns give the total number of entries and hearths in each place. For 1662 only one line is needed for each place. For 1666 three lines are needed: for those recorded as 'Paid'; for the 'Unpaid'; and for the combined total of the two categories. For 1674 up to four lines may be needed: for the taxpayers; for those among the taxpayers with empty houses, etc.; for the exempt; and for the combined total of those categories. No exempt are recorded for seven out of the twenty-five places in the three hundreds. Certificates also survive which were made out in 1672 or early in 1673 and apparently served for the three collections from Lady Day 1672 to Lady Day 1673 [E 179/84/440]. They include certificates for all the seven places without exempt in 1674, all save one of which were in Chilford hundred. The probable reason why no exempt were recorded for those places in 1674 was that the certificates did not reach the clerk of the peace in time for enrolment. It has therefore been thought useful to give the number of persons in the certificates of 1672 in footnotes to each hundred in the table for 1674. The number is in some cases less than the number of names originally entered in the certificate because in a few certificates some names were cancelled before, or when, the justices of the peace countersigned them. In general, attention is also drawn in footnotes to a few special entries, chiefly of alms-houses or town houses; and to differences, through faulty addition and chiefly in 1674, between the total number of hearths in the recorded entries and the total given in the documents.

In conclusion, a word may be said about the relative comprehensiveness of the assessments. It may be understood that in all lists a person may occur more than once when as a landlord he or she is entered for the hearths in a tenant's house, but in general the number of entries represents the number of households. There is little difference between the totals of entries for 1666 and 1674, which are slightly higher for 1666. The difference is one of five or less, either way, for all but one place in Chilford, two in Radfield, and three in Whittlesford hundreds. In the remaining six places the total is higher for 1666 in four—Ickleton (6), Stetchworth (6), Great Abington (8), and Whittlesford (10)—and for 1674 in two—Burrough Green (7) and Hinxton (8). In Chilford hundred the 1666 lists have the most entries for eight places, the 1674 lists for two places, and in the other they are equal; six of the eight places, however, for which the 1674 lists have fewer entries have no exempt, and if the exempt in those places were about the same as those certified in 1672 the balance would be much more even. In Radfield hundred the 1666 lists have the most entries for six places, the 1674 lists for one, and in the other two they are equal. In Whittlesford hundred the 1666 lists have the most entries for three places and the 1674 lists the most for the other two. The 1662 lists were intended to include only taxpayers. In most other districts in the county they have, however, generally supplied a list for one place which has solely, or jointly with one of the other assessments, the highest number of entries. In these three hundreds they do not do so; their number of entries is the lowest for all places and, in total, the lowest for each hundred. Their totals are also substantially lower than the totals of those chargeable in 1674, but since far more details of the 1662 assessments survive for the country as a whole than from any other date, those lists are the most useful for comparative studies of England and Wales generally.

ANALYSIS OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE HEARTH TAX: CHILFORD, RADFIELD, AND WHITTLESFORD HUNDREDS

1662 Michaelmas

1666 Lady Day

1674 Lady Day