Introduction to Wiltshire Hearth Tax 1662

The Wiltshire hearth tax assessment published in this edition is undated, but the E 179 Database team, citing List and Index Society vol. 75, p. 169, suggested that it relates to the first hearth tax collection period of Michaelmas (29 of September) 1662, perhaps on the basis of the absence of non-chargeable households. As such the document provides a fascinating insight into a large rural county with an ancient cathedral city at its heart, at the inception of the hearth tax before the revising Acts of 1663 and 1664. The assessment is arranged by hundreds (apart from Salisbury), parishes and tithings, and boroughs. The city of Salisbury and the borough of Marlborough were sub-divided into wards. As the assessment only lists the chargeable households (i.e. those with a rental value of 20 shillings and over per annum), it is likely that between a fifth and a third of households are not recorded (i.e. non-chargeable). But exemption certificates do survive in TNA E 179/259/26B relating to the following places for 1662-1664, with an * indicating those relating to 1662: Ashley, Brinkworth, Charlton (Malmesbury hundred), Crudwell*, Elcombe, Fisherton Anger, Foxley, Hankerton*, Long Newton*, Malmesbury*, Salisbury, Swindon*, Tockenham Wick and Underditch hundred. TNA E 179/259/26B comprising a series of single or double folio documents of assessments, arrears, exemption certificates and returns including data relating to no goods collected in lieu of payment (i.e. “no distress"), under the Sheriffs’ regime between 1662 and 1664. Comparison of these documents with the 1662 assessment would provide further insights on the mechanisms of the tax during its early years.

The assessment was recorded on 107 parchment membranes of varying sizes. The standard measurement is of 53 cm (with a width of 14cm); however, in part 1, the opening three membranes range between 20 and 27 cm in length, and in part 2 membranes 51 to 53 measure only 9cm by 11cm.

The assessment for Wiltshire is very incomplete due to the poor condition of the document. There are considerable gaps in the manuscript as a result of loss of parts and whole membranes, compounded by areas of illegibility due to water damage. Such gaps pose a particular problem for place-name evidence, and the editors have sought to fill these gaps.

By comparing the totals of hearths in each tithing and in the list of hundreds (at the end of the document), it is possible to estimate how much of the data are missing. The data for Salisbury are incomplete, not just due to damage to membranes. The total number of hearths is 3,027, yet the two subtotals are 1,101 and 792, making a shortfall of 1,135. Comparing the returns with a subsidy of 1667 published in Wiltshire Archaeological magazine (WAM 36 pp 413ff), the first section of the assessment relating to Salisbury can be identified as New Street ward. The second relates both to Mead ward (named), which had relative few residents, and Martin ward. The missing ward is Market ward, which must have run to several membranes, now lost. Missing entirely from the assessment are the towns of Bradford on Avon, Devizes and Wilton (and Wilton House), and Longleat House. The assessments for the hundreds of Mere and Dunworth are particularly fragmentary. However, on the plus side, data for Calne, Marlborough and Downton, the hundred of Swanborough, and many parishes appear to be fairly complete. Not withstanding the losses, a total of 9,200 householders are listed, with around one in eleven households headed by women, including 264 widows and 77 women with the status descriptor of mistress.

In 1951 C.A.F. Meekings reassembled the manuscript into its current four parts on the basis of the summaries of totals for the hundreds now located at the end of part 3, on membrane 107. Parts 1-3 comprise the assessment and part 4 is a series of membrane fragments. Palaeographical evidence can be used to make links between some of these fragments and membranes in parts 1 to 3. For example, the hand on membrane 110r in part 4 is the same as completed the sub-total entries for Whorwellsdown, Westbury, Warminster, Mere and Dunworth hundreds in part 3, on membrane 107. But the fragments are without place name data and only give the first names of householders. Membrane 120 recto has three names, of which two surnames are incomplete. No reconstruction has been undertaken to link these fragments to membranes in parts 1 to 3, and therefore part 4 is not published here.

In one case Meekings' ordering was incorrect. The place names are missing from two lists, one at the top of 73 recto and one at the bottom of 76 verso, but on the basis of the historical research both can be connected to Heytesbury, a parish not divided into tithings. When the membranes are compared to the list of hundreds at the end of the document, it is clear that membrane 73, should follow 76. Two fragments, at membranes 53 and 54, are the heads to 51 and 50 respectively providing the names Langly [Langley Burrell] and Pewsham [Forest] to places identified by internal evidence.

This digital edition brings data for many previously unidentified places into the public domain for the first time. Six compound place names, of which only one element is legible, can be easily recognised. Steve Hobbs has undertaken research using parish registers and probate records held at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, accessed via Ancestry, and the Clergy of the Church of England database (CCEd). By making links between inhabitants and parishes/tithings, he has extended knowledge of geographical locations, identifying 56 places. These have been marked-up with “supplied” XML tags, and in addition care has been taken to ensure that all tithings are connected to the correct parishes in geographical hierarchies as set out in the geographical information bar. As a result just four places across the assessment still remain nameless due to the lack of any practical internal evidence. C.A.F. Meekings and the E 179 Database team started the work of extending the knowledge of geographical locations beneath the hundredal level, and Steve Hobbs has extended this work. Users will find notes against the names of some of the incumbents and householders, providing the internal evidence which has enabled identification of places.

This historical research also means that the note functions have been used to extend information on people listed. For example, at membrane 6 verso, John …e, esq, can be identified as John Ernle by a deed of 1674 (Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, 1720/17). In all cases where names have been added in this manner, the information found in other sources is inserted via notes signalling the historical sources. This has a two-fold advantage; firstly the name is searchable in the database, and secondly, and the name of the householder is visible on the transcript. In one case, although CCEd named the rector of Winterbourne Gunner as John Burley, he signed a glebe terrier and a note in the parish register as Burnley, and this has been adopted in the transcript. At membrane 15 verso, Oliver Shropshire can be identified as the lessee of the Angel Inn by letters, dated to 1660 and 1663 (WSA, 3430/23, 44). At membrane 84 recto, Doctor Creed, who had a house in Salisbury Close can be identified as Dr William Creed, archdeacon of Wiltshire and prebendary of Lyme and Halstock (CCEd). Thus, about 360 biographical notes have been included in this digital edition by the editors as part of the work to identify missing places and hence indirectly to provide biographical details of many of the householders listed in the assessment. This is the first time that digital sources have been used to help resolve gaps and damage to heath tax manuscripts and hence to turn what would otherwise be a record of questionable value into one which be used to pinpoint where householders were living in the late seventeenth century, their rank and the numbers of hearths in their households, together with information on the collection of the tax.

Support from the British Academy and the Marc Fitch Fund has enabled this edition to be published, and we are grateful to them.

Andrew Wareham and Steve Hobbs