Land Tax Assessments
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In 1692 the British government instituted a scheme to increase
revenue which came to be known as the
land tax. The laws changed several times over the years until the tax was
finally repealed in 1963. The tax was administered locally and original records
will usually be located at the County Record Office. From 1780 to 1832, a copy
of the Land Tax Assessment was placed in the quarter session records. The
Clerks of the Peace used the Land Tax Assessments to determine a person’s
electoral rights until 1832.
The Land Tax Assessments can be useful for genealogists and family
historians. It provides an annual list of proprietors and, in theory, the names
of the actual occupiers in each parish. Because the list is annual, arrival and
departure dates of an individual or family can sometimes be tracked by
examining consecutive years of land tax assessments. It can also be an
indicator of inheritance, and thus, death of an individual. You can often
differentiate between various pieces of property by the amount of the tax
assessed. Persons with a long-term lease or copyhold may be named as the
proprietor. The economic status of an ancestor in comparison with their
neighbours can be inferred from the tax list. Unfortunately, not all the
records have survived.
Their survival rate is low for the first 90 years that the tax was
collected. From 1780 to 1832, the survival rate is much more uniform.
Post-1832 assessments contain incomplete lists of owners and
occupiers.
Names in the tax lists are usually male household heads not
connected in any way with family members. This increases the risk of getting
the wrong person. If a widow remarried, her property might be listed in the
name of her new husband.
The names of proprietors may have been out of date.
In 1798, the government began allowing the tax to be exonerated
with a lump sum payment equal to fifteen years of the annual tax. As part of
the 1798 assessment, parishes were ordered to file an extra copy with the
government so they could compile a uniform assessment for every parish in
England and Wales. For more information on the 1798 assessment, see National
Land Tax Assessment.
See also
Jeremy Gibson and Dennis Mills. Land and Window Tax Assessments.
Solihull, England: Federation of Family History Societies Publications, 1987.
This book gives dates of records held by each repository, arranged by county
name.
Unwin, R. W. Search Guide to the English Land Tax.
Yorkshire, England: West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, 1982. (FS
Library book 942 R47u.) This book explains how to use land tax assessment
records.