Why historians love the taxman, Teesdale Mercury

Why historians love the taxman

Jul 11, 2007

By Jinny Howlett

From before the time of the Domesday Survey taxes have been collected countrywide. And with taxation come tax forms and bureaucracy - nightmare - but for local historians and tax collectors pure bliss! Unlike today taxes weren't intended to improve the lot of the people. Instead taxes were collected by the king to pay for wars and his household expenses. Of course, the king had to have the consent - grudging or otherwise - of Parliament. However, the ordinary people who bore the brunt of the expense had no say whatsoever - much as today really.

The Domesday Survey itself was a tax document. William the Conqueror needed to know what he had won and what condition the land was in before he could set his tax rates. Over the centuries various schemes were tried in order to squeeze more taxes out of people without destroying their livelihood, which would be counter productive.

Virtually everything has been taxed at one time or other: land, crops, dogs, servants, horses, ploughs, fireplaces, windows etcetera etcetera. Individuals were taxed in the 14th Century - a poll tax. This was as unpopular the first time round as it was the second. Income tax was introduced for the first time in the 18th Century: before then people didn't really earn enough to be worth taxing.

Apart from the Domesday Survey, the taxes that produced the best information for historians are the Lay Subsidies of the 14th Century and the Hearth Tax of the 17th Century. With the Lay Subsidies, households were taxed on the value of their moveable possessions. Usually a tenth or a fifteenth was collected. The tax returns list the names of the heads of house in each community as well as the amount of tax they owed. Sometimes the person's house name and occupation are also given. So from these tax returns we can learn for example that 10 households in Startforth paid tax at Michaelmas in 1301. Among those paying tax at Startforth was William the miller, so perhaps there was a mill in the village. And in the Hunderthwaite list among the 13 taxpayers there is a William of Wilden - presumably Wilden Grange - which is still there. The Lay Subsidy was collected from 1181 to 1623 - quite a long life.

The Hearth Tax had a much shorter life, from 1662 until 1690. Householders were again listed but those occupying houses worth less than 20 shillings a year were exempted. The Hearth Tax is therefore a less comprehensive resource than the Lay Subsidy. However it does give a picture of the sizes of houses and the number of relatively wealthy families in each village. In Eggleston, for instance, 35 households had a single hearth taxed while one house was more up-market with two hearths. Staindrop was altogether a much wealthier place in the 17th Century with 11 houses with two fireplaces and one house with three. There were 63 households rich enough to be taxed in Staindrop.

So that's a quick run through of our national taxes over the centuries, but of course that's not the end of it. There has always been local taxation. In the past though instead of paying to the council, the money went to the lord of the manor. Unlike national taxes, some of the local rates did go towards improving the lot of the inhabitants. However, most went towards improving the lifestyle of the local lord.

You paid tax on all sorts of eventualities. If you moved out of the village, fathered an illegitimate child, travelled through the lord's forest, used the lord's oven, saw your children married or pastured your pigs on the lord's waste land then you paid for the privilege. In addition, rates were levied for the repair of roads, bridges, ditches and the local beacon. At least these rates were for the general good of the community. The paperwork associated with local taxes is somewhat patchy. The best records are found in the court documents  because that's where people or communities ended up when they failed to pay their taxes.

Is that the finish then? Well not exactly. There was still the church tax, known as the tithe. People were expected to pay for their rector or vicar. If you owned or leased land then you paid rates on this depending on the amount you held. Many people though had very little land and they paid tithes to support their clergy. Tithes were calculated on income from farming, whether it was eggs or wool or corn, one tenth went to the support of the rector of the church. Tithe barns were built to collect all the crops from each village. Laithkirk Church is believed to have been a tithe barn when it was built. The tithe is an ancient tax and seems straightforward enough. However, in many cases the rector wasn't the person who took the services at the church. Instead he was - guess what - the lord of the manor, who then paid someone to take the services. A backdoor tax if ever there was one!

In the middle of the 19th Century tithes became difficult to collect and calculate so instead a money payment could be negotiated. Maps were drawn to show how much land people held. These tithe maps are among some of the most valuable and informative records available to local historians. They are often very large and very detailed. Fields are usually named and marked on the map and crops are recorded. They are a delight to study - as long as you forget they are really tax returns. I wonder if our tax papers will prove as interesting to future generations?