Agricultural History Review, Volume 57 Part 2 (2009), p. 281

For a source that consists normally of two columns, one of names, the other of numbers of hearths, the Hearth Tax continues to throw up a surprising range of problems. As with all taxes, perhaps the most complex of these is not the object of the tax itself, but rather the processes by which this levy was administered. As Elizabeth Parkinson shows in her excellent new study of the early years of the Hearth Tax, for historians wishing properly to understand the form and scope of this apparently simple impost, the devil really is in the detail.

Although the Hearth Tax endured through various administrative regimes from 1662 to 1689, this volume covers the years when it was collected by the Exchequer, through parochial and county officials. Thereafter, apart from the period between 1669 and 1674, the tax was ‘farmed’ to private City collectors, who paid the government an agreed sum, and reimbursed themselves through gathering the revenues directly. Periods of Exchequer and county administration have left records, while, on the whole, periods of private collection have not.

Elizabeth Parkinson’s study covers all aspects of these first years, including the legislative history of the tax, the three collection regimes instituted in the 1660s, followed by three chapters that explore the implications of these regimes for under-payment and arrears, the question of exemption and the problems of non-payment. As with Arkell’s study in the 1992 volume Surveying the people, this analysis is buttressed by an appendix which illustrates the various categories of document generated by these collection regimes, plus further appendices examining the internal consistency of some sample listings.

The study charts the legislative genesis of the Hearth Tax, setting it effectively in the context of the Crown’s financial problems after 1660. It explains the emergence of this ‘poll tax’ on fireplaces, and details very carefully how questions about categories of exemption arose rapidly, and how the initial problems with collection in London in 1662 led to refinements in the assessment process. In many respects, Chapter Three of this study may become the most quoted because it explains more clearly than in any preceding account how the ‘direct’ collection phase of the tax was actually three distinct regimes, each with their own difficulties. In the first year of the tax, assessment and collection methods placed a heavy responsibility on amateur parochial officials possessed of variable standards of literacy. In 1663, this system of local government was modified, so that the Constable was to be assisted by two ‘substantial inhabitants’, and to report assessment and collection to the High Constable. Finally, in 1664, the Exchequer appointed its own Receivers, who were to choose their own sub-collectors to manage the process of assessment and collection at the parish level. Gradually, control over the tax was taken out of the hands of normal system of parochial and county administration, and handed to appointed collectors.

Dr Parkinson shows that this shift amplified many of the resentments against the tax, which thwarted each collection regime. She demonstrates that across the whole country, between Michaelmas 1662 and Lady Day 1664, an average of 77 per cent of the anticipated yield was collected. Eight counties managed a 96 per cent return, while the complexities of London house holdings limited it to 56 per cent. These variations were accompanied by delays in collecting arrears, so that in Hampshire, for example, the Lady Day 1664 payments were not received until seven months later in October. In Gloucester, the first payment in the same assessment was received in March 1666! These delays meant that in many counties the final accounts for each assessment were not resolved for many years. In Shropshire, the 1664–5 accounts were only finally signed off on 4 July 1683! This may have been in line with the normal capabilities of the early modern state, but it implies a degree of bloody-mindedness as well.

Part of the problem was the criteria for exemption, which had always been multiple, and to some degree inconsistent. This left scope for different parishes, assessors and justices to interpret the rules in a variety of ways. Dr Parkinson also suggests that there was a widespread recognition that the first assessment in 1662 had been too strict, and needed to be modified in practice. It was easier to collect from those who definitely could afford to pay, than it was to waste too much time chasing those who definitely could not. This analysis shows in considerable detail how the interpretation of exemption criteria varied county-by-county, often deviating from the statute norms, and even hundred-by-hundred within particular counties. The other issue was a wider reluctance among taxpayers to pay a direct tax that was imposed in perpetuity and (increasingly) collected by individuals originating outside, and unaccountable to, the localities in which they operated. This resentment was generally expressed in foot-dragging and evasion, rather than large-scale disturbances, although there were riots in the depressed weaving districts of Gloucestershire in the winter of 1665–6.

These issues are explained clearly and fully in this impressive volume. It is truly a national study, drawing examples from all over the country, and tabulating results that encompass most of the counties of England and Wales. It represents a formidable amount of work on the E 179 class in the National Archives, and it deserves to be accompanied, in due course, by a comparable volume on the years 1669–74. There is only one frustration – that a volume produced by the List and Index society should lack an index of its own! However that is a minor quibble. Instead it is far better to conclude by saying that this book is sufficiently important that anyone who wishes to use the Hearth Tax in any kind of historical study must read it before proceeding further.