The Hearth Tax Digital Website

Hearth Tax Digital is the work of the Centre for Hearth Tax Research at the University of Roehampton, in collaboration with the University of Graz in Austria. The long-term objective of the project is to make all the surviving records of the Hearth Tax freely available online, both as digital images and as a fully searchable database. Other partners in the project include The British Academy, the British Record Society and the University of the Third Age (U3A).

The Hearth Tax was first levied in England and Wales by King Charles II shortly after the restoration of the monarchy in 1662 and continued to be collected in one form or another up until 1689. The surviving records list the names of those who were liable to pay the tax (charged at the rate of one shilling per hearth, twice yearly) and many also include the names of those who were exempt – people who didn’t pay the poor rate or who had limited personal assets were not required to pay the tax.

Most of the original records are held by The National Archives, but many are also to be found in local county record offices, often among records of the quarter sessions. While it is important to note that only the names of heads of households will appear on the lists, occupations are occasionally found in the records as well as titles such as ‘Sir’ and ‘Esquire’, which give us an idea of social status. The number of hearths (and stoves or ovens) listed next to the names also provides an indication of relative wealth while the word ‘Pauper’ or the letter ‘P’ next to a name on the exempt lists gives us clues about those at the other end of the social scale.

The database allows you to search by name and/or place and you have the option of using wildcards. You can quickly move from the results list to a transcript of the returns themselves and there is also an option to select individual records and add them to your ‘databasket’ so that you can sort and compare your own sub-set of records.

The website was officially launched at the British Academy on 2 July and the Hearth Tax Digital website currently provides access to returns from parts of Yorkshire, Durham, Middlesex, Westminster and the City of London. Returns for Essex, Sussex and Westmorland are in the pipeline and the team is looking at introducing mapping features – so watch out for updates.

The Weird World of Taxation

Think your current tax return is complicated?  Here are some of the weird taxes that have been levied on our ancestors around the world .

Hearths

A hearth tax was a property tax in certain countries during the medieval and early modern period, levied on each hearth, thus by proxy on each family unit. It was calculated based on the number of hearths, or fireplaces, within a municipal area.

Hats

From 1784 to 1811, Britain levied a tax on men’s hats. Hat retailers had to buy a license, and each hat had to have a revenue stamp glued to the inside.

Windows

In 1696 in England, “An Act for Granting to His Majesty Several Rates or Duties Upon Houses for Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money” created a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. This tax would have primarily been paid by the wealthy and was similar to the earlier Hearth Tax.  The tax was repealed in 1851.

Dice

The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed Britain’s American colonists on many things, including dice, playing cards and newspapers. Most of the colonies formally condemned the act, protests turned violent, and several colonies held a Stamp Act Congress. Parliament repealed the act the next year.

Wallpaper

In 1712, during the reign of Queen Anne, England imposed a 1 pence-per-square-yard tax on printed, patterned or painted wallpaper. Decorators would bypass the tax by hanging plain wallpaper, and then having it stencilled by hand. Britain abolished the tax in 1836.

Beards

Russian Emperor Peter the Great, hoping to modernize his country to compete with Western powers, introduced a tax on men’s beards in 1698. The facially hirsute had to carry around a token showing they’d paid. Police could forcibly shave those lacking their token. Wealthy bearded folk were taxed more heavily than average townsfolk. 

Salt

Salt was a valuable food preservative, making it a target for taxation. The Moscow Salt Riot of 1648 protested Russia’s universal salt tax which disproportionately affected the peasantry, whose diet was mainly salt-preserved fish.  In France, the hated salt tax contributed to the French Revolution. The National Assembly abolished this salt tax in 1790, but Napoleon reinstated it in 1806.  In India, Mahatma Gandhi staged a 24-day Salt March to protest British taxes on salt production, a heavy burden for coastal villages.

Tea

American colonists paid a tax on tea starting with the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act, which also taxed glass, lead, oil, paint and paper. Boycotts and protests led Parliament to repeal the Townshend Act taxes, except for tea, in 1770. But this isn’t what sparked the Boston Tea Party in 1773. That was the Tea Act, passed on May 10, 1773. It gave the British East India Co. a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies, allowing it to undercut both smuggled-in tea and Colonial tea importers. Tea would be cheaper, but Colonists would still have to pay the tax.

Playing cards

We noted that the Stamp Act included playing cards among its taxed items. More recently, in 1935, the state of Alabama issued a 10-cent tax on packs of playing cards containing 54 or fewer cards. Each package had to have a revenue stamp affixed to it.  The tax ended in 2015, under legislation that suspends taxes when the cost of collecting them outweighs the revenue gained.

Week 15 - Taxes - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

The time has flown and suddenly I am three weeks behind in my #52ancestors posts.  I will try to do better and catch up.
Week 15 focuses on the unavoidable taxes.  Income tax, land tax, rates, death duties - there are so many types of taxes we all have to pay.
I have blogged a few times about the many treasures my sister and I found while cleaning out the family home after our parents had passed.  So many things that our parents had held on to but never brought out and showed us - probably because they believed we were not interested in them, or because our parents forgot they had them at all.  There were so many little treasures and keepsakes that we had no idea of the history of, that were mostly thrown away (there is only so much space for these things, after all).
Among the many things we found were our father's old income tax records, dating from the 1950's to the 1980's.  They were tucked into an envelope at the back of his wardrobe, creased and folded and in many cases badly faded, but I have sorted them out, put them in archive boxes for preservation, and am still in the process of scanning them, along with a box full of other old documents, photographs and letters.  They are a wonderful find and I am so pleased to have them - they help build a clearer picture of my parents' lives.

My father's income for 1955-56

 Another tax-related treasure I have found recently, this time on Ancestry, are old rate books.  I found several ancestors listed in the rate books for the Melbourne suburbs of Brighton, Caulfield and St Kilda, dating back into the 1890's.  Another way of finding out where my ancestors lived, their occupations and other details about their lives.

The 1897 Rate Book for Brighton, listing my Great Grandfather James Nicholas Clark