Suffolk in 1674 : being the hearth tax returns.

1905·36 MB·English

by  S. H. A. H. (Sydenham Henry Augustus Hervey), b. 1846 ed

SUFFOLK
IN 1674.
THE HEARTH TAX.
SUFFOLK GREEN BOOKS
No. XI. Vol. 13.
DAVID O. MCKAY LIBRARY
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SUFFOLK
IN
1674,
BEING THE
Hearth Tax
Returns.
SUFFOLK GREEN BOOKS.
XL
No. Vol.
13.
WOODBRIDGE
:
GEORGE BOOTH, CHURCH STREET,
1905.

3
CONTENTS.
page
—
Preface v xxxi
Explanations and Corrections xxxii
—
Hearth Tax Returns
1 27
Original Order of the Parishes 28—333
3
Summary
334
Houses with 20 Hearths and Upwards 335> 336
Houses with a Name 336 337
>
List of Peers 337
Baronets, Knights and Dames 337—339
Military and Naval Officers 339, 34°
Doctors 34o
Clergymen and Parsonages 340—342
Index of all Persons 343—442
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PREFACE.
Sect. I. What have we here ?
Sect. II. Parliamentary History of the Hearth Tax.
Sect. III. Contemporary Evidence of its Unpopularity.
Sect. IV. Its Yearly Value.
Sect. V. The Return for Suffolk.
Sect. VI. A Guide to the Population.
Sect. VII. Etceteras.
I. WHAT HAVE WE HERE? A return giving us the name of the
occupier of every single house in Suffolk in the year 1674, with the number of
hearths that house contained. This volume carries us into every town, village,
and hamlet in Suffolk in 1674, sets us down at the door of each house, gives us
the name of its occupier, and tells us how many fire-hearths he had in his house.
It is a complete directory for Suffolk in the sixteenth (nominally the twenty-sixth)
year of Charles II, completer far than any that Kelly or White have given us for
the reign of Queen Victoria for while they only give us the names of a certain
;
number of people in each place this gives us the name of every man. The names
of those who were exempted from paying rates by reason of their poverty are given
as well as the names of those who had to pay. The great mansions containing
from 20 to 50 hearths, the smaller squires's houses containing from 10 to 20, the
parsonages and yeomen's houses containing 6 more or less, the tottering cottages
with only 1, here they are all set down, together with the names of those who
were lucky or unlucky enough to be warm or to shiver within them. This volume
will not tell us who's who, but it will tell us who's where and where's who, and
that is what we often want to know.
PREFACE. SECT.
vi I.
The history of this return put into a nutshell is this In the Spring of 1662
:
Charles II entreated Parliament to grant him some money, and they granted to
him and his successors two shillings a year on every hearth in England and
Wales. The tax was to be paid by the occupier. At first it had to be collected
by the local constables, but they being slack about it officers appointed by the
king had the collecting of it. From the very first this tax was odious to the
people. Compared with it the Education Act of 1902 is universally beloved.
Being odious it was resisted passively and actively passively by false returns and
;
concealment of hearths, actively by stoning the chimney-men who came to collect
it. The Justices of the Peace, many of them, sympathized with the people. The
tax continued through the reigns of Charles II and James II but the very first
;
thing that \\ illiam III did was to send a message to the House of Commons that
he was willing to agree to its being taken away. Consequently in April, 1689, a
bill for taking it away received royal assent. The hearth tax Act was therefore
only in force from the spring of 1662 to the spring of 1689, and from first to last
was hated, evaded, and resisted.
But its history, Parliamentary and otherwise, deserves rather a larger shell
than that of a nut. I will therefore give that history more fully in the following
sections of this preface.
It will be seen that this return gives the number of inhabited houses in
Suffolk as about 28,400, with about 60,000 hearths between them. If we reckon
an average of 5 persons to each house, that would give Suffolk a population at that
time of 142,000. I will go more closely into the matter of population presently.
But before passing on to these other matters it may be as well to remind
those who may use this volume that nothing is absolutely perfect in this world,
and consequently we must expect that there may be some differences between the
names of the 28,400 men as they sat by these 60,000 hearths and said, Aha, we are
warm, we have seen the fire and their names as here printed. Some few names
!
may be blundered, some few may not be there at all. For between those men as
they sat in their chimney corners and as they stand in this book there lie five
painful and tedious operations, and each of those operations may have added more
or less to the differences between the living men on their hearths and the dead
men in this book.