Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:36:13.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Finance and Political Stability: The Administration of the Land Tax, 1688–1720

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Colin Brooks
Colin Brooks
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two major themes have been orchestrated in the course of recent research into the period 1688 to 1714. In the sphere of politics, die extent and intensity of party conflict, especially in Anne's reign, has been laid bare in the work of G. Holmes and W. A. Speck, among others; whilst J. H. Plumb, in The Growth of Political Stability has sketched the motive forces behind the spreading and then the quieting, of that conflict.1 In the second recently developed area, that of public financ , P. G. M. Dickson's The Financial Revolution in Englandhas provided us with the insights and precision necessary to qualify and confirm previous assertions about the substantial contribution made by the developing ‘funding system’ to the success of England, under William and then Marlborough, in holding off Louis XIV, and, consequently, in establishing the Hanoverian dynasty on the throne.2

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 281 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, especially, Holmes, G. S., British Politics in the Age of Anne (1966);Google ScholarSpeck, W. A., Tory and Whig (1968);Google ScholarPlumb, J. H., The Growth of Political Stability (1966). I would like to thank Prof. Plumb for his interest in, and advice on, my work.Google Scholar

2 Dickson, P. G. M., The Financial Revolution in England (1967).Google Scholar

3 I do not consider here the separate issue of the principles behind the Poll, Window, and Births, Marriages, and Burials Taxes. In terms of methods of assessment and collection, they were largely similar if poorer relations of the Land Tax. But it is notable that, after the first year of their operation, oversight of the Window, and Births etc. Taxes passed from distinct Commissioners to the Justices of the Peace.

4 This study is based primarily on the following local records relating to tax administration: Bristol: Commissioners' Minute Books [M.Bks.] and Assessments in the Bristol A.O.; Hayes, Middx.: Book of Assessments, Middlesex R.O., Ace. 180/116; East Kent (Wingham Division): Assessments in the Kent A.O., Q/CT1; Ipswich: Borough Records, A/X, Ipswich & East Suffolk R.O.; Lincolnshire (Candleshoe Wapentake); Lines. A.O., Lindsey MSS 35/2; City of London in the Corporation of London R.O., and the Guildhall Library, MS 11316 - Assts and M.Bks; Ludlow: Assts and Pie Powder Court Book, Shropshire R.O.; New Romney, Assts and M.Bks, Kent A.O., NR/RT; Norwich: Assts, Norfolk & Norwich R.O. (I have not been able to use Norwich Minute files, which came to light after this article had been completed); Richmond, Yks.: Assts and M.Bks, North Riding of Yorkshire R.O., DC/RM; Salisbury; M.Bks, Salisbury Diocesan R.O., Salisbury Borough Records, z.224; Southampton; M.Bks and Assts, Southampton Civic R.O. SC. 14/1 & 2; East Sussex: Assts, East Sussex R.O., MS D.472; Westminster (St. Margaret's Parish): M.Bks, Westminster Public Library, E.2510 ff; Winchester: M.Bk and Asst Bk, Guildhall, Winchester (I must thank the Town Clerk for permission to look at documents in his custody). These have been supplemented by other relevant local records – wills, inventories, poll books, parish records, etc. – and by private family archives, and documents in the Treasury Papers in the P.R.O. Unfortunately none of the papers of the Tax Agents (the body supervising the Assessed Taxes) have survived. And as the above list indicates, much of the evidence comes from towns with a well established – and hence record-keeping – civic administration. Evidence from rural areas, especially on the work of the Land Tax Commissioners, is very sparse.

5 The Spectator, ed. Bond, D. (Oxford, 1965), i, 509 (no. 125, 24 07 1711).Google Scholar

6 The English Land Tax in the 18th Century (Oxford, 1953). My debt to this book is great throughout.Google Scholar

7 Many of the political nation did disapprove: not only during the sterile years of Marlborough's war before 1710, but also in the succeeding years when Robert Harley, to tory amazement, found it just as expensive to bring the war to a close.

8 Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), p. 386.Google Scholar

9 Whether the Excise lived up, in practice, to the stereotypes variously envisaged by its opponents and proponents is, of course, another matter.

10 e.g. Everitt, A., The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion, 1640–1660 (Leicester, 1966);Google ScholarUnderdown, D., Pride's Purge (Oxford, 1971);Google Scholar his Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1972);Google Scholar and his subtle essay ‘The Settlement in the Counties’ in The Interregnum, ed. Aylmer, G. E. (1972).Google Scholar

11 Such an interpretation received its classic exposition in Marion, M., Histoire Financière de la France depuis 1715, i, 1715–89 (Paris, 1914).Google Scholar A useful recent survey is Hincker, F., Les Français devant l' Impôt sous l' Ancien Régime (Paris, 1971).Google Scholar For a local illustration, see Deyon, P., Amiens, Capitale Provinciale (Paris, 1968), p. 472:Google Scholar after 1688 ‘pour la deuxième fois au cours du siède, la politique monarchique accablait la société et l'éonomie du pays’. But for an example of far more peaceful communal self-government, see Aragon, J.M., ‘Un Village de Gascogne Toulousaine au i8ème siècle: Léguevin’, Annales du Midi, 1972, LXXXIV, 439–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Cf. for a later period e.g. Ginter, D., Whig Organization in the General Election of 1790 (Los Angeles, 1969), pp. 246–50.Google Scholar

13 Treasury to Southampton Land Tax Commissioners, denying Jacobite rumours that government officials in London were under-taxed, March 1697, S.C.R.O. SC. 14/1/10.

14 e.g. Davenant, C., Memorial on Credit, in Two Manuscripts by Charles Davenant, ed. Usher, A. P. (Baltimore, 1942), p. 72;Google Scholar‘Taxes no Charge’, in Harleian Miscellany, ix, 508.Google Scholar

15 It might be argued too that the success of funding diverted administrative attention from the ‘weaknesses’ of the tax system.

16 Sperling, J. G., ‘Godolphin and the Organization of Public Credit’, Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, 1955, p. 12.Google Scholar

17 Habakkuk, H. J., ‘English Landownership, 1680–1740’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 1940, x, 2–17;CrossRefGoogle ScholarParker, R. A. C., ‘Direct Taxation on the Coke Estates in the 18th Century’, Eng. Hist. Rev., 1956, LXXI, 247–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In 1696, Lord Ashburnham thought Bedfordshire taxes particularly high (E.S.R.O., Ashburnham MSS 840, p. 39).Google Scholar On the other hand, not all Norfolk lands were rated as heavily as those belonging to the Cokes, as an irate note on under-assessment in North East Norfolk complains (N. & N.R.O., Petre MSS 1047/29/2, n.d., c. 1715).

18 As The True Way of Taxing…, 1693, p. 26, sadly noted.Google Scholar

19 Documents throughout P.R.O. E.182 (an enormous series of massive and very dirty sacks: sampled only); SP. 28/162, non-payment list, Westminster, 1643–5. In 1719, New Romney asked its M.P.s to petition for two Excisemen to be sent down, to replace two posted elsewhere, and prevent any loss of taxes, Kent A.O., NR/RTl/5. For the complications of assessing personal estate, in London, see C.L.R.O., Asst Box 27c, 1697 appeals.

20 The impetus to tax personal estate soon ran down: perhaps another example of the purchase of political and social quiescence at the expense of presumed efficiency, for the taxation of personal estate was feared to entail inquisitorial methods alien to the character of the Land Tax. I hope to deal with this, and with the question of the national distribution of the Land Tax burden, elsewhere.

21 W. L., , Some Observations upon Discourses lately Published…, 1698, p. 14.Google Scholar

22 One might speculate whether it was fiscal pressure which led to deteriorating relationships between Hayes tenants and their landlord, Sir Roger Newdegate. Newdegate thought himself ‘continually plagued with the impertinence of John Hill butcher’ and later scrawled ‘John Hill like a Villain as he is refused to pay my note Turn him off Root him out of Harefield’ (a Hayes hamlet). Newdegate Estate Book, 1695, Warwickshire R.O., CR. 136/V/17, pp. 379, 724.

23 See Ward, , op. cit., pp. 38–41.Google Scholar The socially persuasive were particularly prominent in West minster: in 1692, the St Margaret's Commissioners ordered that no wives should appeal unless their husbands were actually sick! W.P.L., E.2514a, front, f. 23–5.

24 Irby assessment, 1704, Lines A.O., Lindsey MSS 35/2; Bristol A.O., MS 04798 f. 57; W.P.L., E.2513, f. 8v, 12V–13; C.L.R.O., Asst Box 16/4 (1710–16). In St Bartholomew the Great parish, surpluses accruing whilst John Richardson and John Weldale were collectors (1710–13) went forward to the next year's receipts: when new collectors took over in 1714, the balance of, £8 2s was, by order of the Commissioners, transferred to the Churchwardens, for parish use.

25 e.g. at Southampton and Salisbury.

26 E.S.R.O., Ashburnham MSS 843, p. 346Google Scholar and Catsfield Assts. MS D472. In 1702, the quota of Ashburnham parish was £234 2s 8d, necessitating a rate of 4s 3d in the pound, which in fact raised £234 7s gd (idem.) The 1703 assessment for Broad Street Ward, in the City of London, was, £6,846 16s: the quota was only £6,578 14s 8d.

27 Statutes of the Realm, 1810–1822 ed., VII, 311;Google ScholarWard, , op. cit., p. 3. The 1696 Act, in the middle of the Recoinage crisis, suggested monthly payments but gave discretion to the localities.Google Scholar

28 For the Book of Rates, and the division of the county into ‘Barony’ and ‘Bottom’, see correspondence in Westd. R.O., Le Fleming MSS and Levens Hall MSS (papers of James Grahme: I must thank Col. and Mrs Bagot for allowing me to use these papers). For the Purvey (the proportion each division of the county paid to one Purvey was fixed; the total number of Purveys to be levied fluctuated), see Cumbd. R.O., Lonsdale MSS, and D/PEN/100. I am grateful to John Beckett of the University of Lancaster for his help and advice on Westmorland and Cumberland material.

29 Cal. Try. Books, passim. But the correspondence of the gentry of Cumberland and Westmorland gives the impression that they expected draconian measures, perhaps reflecting the low levels of assessment prevailing in those countries. Westd. R.O., Le Fleming MSS and Levens Hall MSS; Cumbd. R.O., Lonsdale MSS.

30 e.g. New Romney, Richmond (Yorks), Ipswich (after 1714) and some Norwich parishes. Such rotation appears to have been more common in the administration of the less important Window Tax.

31 ‘It seems you and Markham are Assessors, and I hope you are also Collectors and then some thing will be got by it’, J. Verney to Coleman, his steward, 4 May 1698, Bucks R.O., Verney Letters [V.L.], Reel 50. Leicestershire collectors received nothing (officially) if their total was under £11 (P.R.O., E.134 2 & 3 Anne Hilary 15; 4 Anne Mich. 35). Receivers tried to cheat collectors of their due, the New Romney Commissioners warned. Kent A.O., NR/RT1, 2 Nov. 1691.

32 e.g. almost 75 per cent of the collecting for which evidence survives from 1689 to 1720 in Southampton was done by men involved only once or twice; whereas about 33 per cent of the assessments were drawn up by men involved five or more times. In the Bristol parishes, which were not monopolized by one or two men, as were those in East Kent, one finds frequently a group of about half a dozen men whose names recur every three or four years over the first two decades of the eighteenth century (evidence for the 1690s is unfortunately incomplete).

33 Cf. Ward, , op. cit., p. 6;Google ScholarGlass, D. V., ed., London Inhabitants within the Walls, 1695 (1966), p. xxxviii,Google Scholar for men who might have been full–time collectors in London. One Nicholas Rolph was collector in at least nine East Kent parishes, and assessor in two (Kent A.O., Q/CT1; P.R.O., E.182/1312).

34 For other examples of continuity, outside the main collections used here, cf. North Walsham and Hemstead, Norfolk (N. & N. R.O., Petre MSS 1047); Hartshill, Warwlcs. (Warwks. R.O., N.2/558f.); Binsted, Hants. (Hants. R.O. 3M517537–553).

35 Minute Books occasionally record the Commissioners choosing two from four or six men presented to them by the Constable: but there are no indications as to the basis of their choice, nor as to whether those not chosen were definitively rejected, or merely had to wait their turn. In West-morland, Quakers were rejected when presented as assessors (Westd. R.O., Le Fleming MSS, D/DRY 4986); but many served in Bristol (biographical index to Minute Book of the Men's Meeting of the Society of Friends in Bristol, 1667–86, ed. Mortimer, R., 1971).Google Scholar In 1718, in Broad Street Ward in the City of London, the Commissioners voted on the names of those presented to be collectors by the assessors: one was rejected (C.L.R.O., Asst Box 16/4). Collectors in France were, in theory, meant to be chosen by the whole village.

36 Ward, , op. cit., p. 5.Google Scholar

37 For some men, at one time assessors and collectors, who had since failed or fled from Exeter, see P.R.O., E.134 4 Anne Mich. 35; 4 Anne Trin. 17. Of the three collectors for Bread St., City of London, 1711–14, one had, by 1716, died insolvent, one had moved to Shropshire or Wales, and the third had become a Commissioner (C.L.R.O., Asst Box 16/4).

38 E.S.R.O., MS D.472. Christopher Dive was assessor and collector for each year (except 1702) for which records survive from 1693 to 1723, when he died.

39 Instances in Bristol, Southampton, and City of London (e.g. Candlewick Ward, C.L.R.O., Asst Box 16/4).

40 Cf. n. 30 above.

41 e.g. the solution of a problem in assessing the royal household, W.P.L., E.2514 rear, f. 9V–9, 5 Feb. 1690. One cannot envy W. Jones his task of collecting ^6,794 10s from the officials of the London Customs House (Guildhall Lib., MS 11316/14, 1703).

42 Especially where that landlord was an absentee: examples abound in estate correspondence of such gentry being taxed at a higher rate than their resident neighbours – e.g. the Chatsworth (Whildon) MSS, the Ashburnham MSS, the Verney MSS, the Levens Hall MSS and the Lonsdale MSS. I hope to deal with this elsewhere.

43 Though in Tenterden, Kent, in 1692, five ‘gentlemen’ joined 11 yeomen, two clothiers, a victualler, and a bricklayer (P.R.O., E.182/1312).

44 For one e.g. Bucks R.O., Verney Letters, Reel 48, Coleman to Verney, 24 Feb. 1695.

45 Hincker, F., op. cit., p. 60.Google Scholar But documents from the second half of the eighteenth century, published by P. St Jacob, show that in some communities in Burgundy, as deliberate policy, assessors were drawn from the Iaboureurs and from the manouvriers, ‘du côté des forts et… du côté des faibles habitans’. Documents Relatifs à la Communauté Villageoise en Bourgogne, Paris, 1962, nos. 25, 28.Google Scholar

46 Lines A.O., Inventories. Those so far found (for 38–10 per cent–of those for whose participation in tax administration evidence survives) reveal estates (including money owed to them) of from £34 to £1478 with a median of £210. Mrs Joan Thirsk has kindly informed me that a sample of Lincolnshire marshland inventories which she took for the year 1690 produced a median of £72 iis 4d.

47 Who were very useful for returning tax money to London – see e.g. Francis Batchelor, grazier and assessor of Burgh (Lines A.O., Massingberd MSS 20/9), and the general discussion by Davies, M. G., ‘Country Gentry and Payments to London, 1650–1714’, Econ. His. Rev., xxiv (1971), 15–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Kent A.O., Q/CTz/2; PRC.il/79/236; PRC.27/36/21; PRC.17/79/434. Lines A.O., Inv. 200/62, inventory of Robert Cobb, of Friskney, husbandman, worth £1,328 3s 9d, 1706.

49 Westd. R.O., Le Fleming MSS D/DRY Box 32.

50 P.R.O., E.134 2 & 3 Anne Hilary 15; 4 Anne Mich. 35.

51 Using the presence of servants in a household as a rough indication of status, the 1692 Poll assessment shows that a large proportion of the town elite (excepting professional men, and, of course, widows) played its part in tax administration; but that not all of those so involved were of the elite.

52 Cf. Ralph, E. and Williams, M. E., The Inhabitants of Bristol in 1968, Bristol, 1968;Google ScholarLatimer, J., The Annals of Bristol in the 18th Century, n.p., 1893.Google Scholar

53 The self-contained nature of Southampton society is apparent in will bequests, and in the names of those who witnessed, or acted as overseers of, wills (wills in Hants R.O.). But friendships were coming to be cemented between the town elite and the local gentry: Sir William Heathcote of Hursley and his wife had tea with Mrs Ingles, the Mayor's wife, and then took her off for an afternoon at the races in June 1729 (Heathcote to Ingles, Hants R.O., 27M54/ik).

54 Clergymen did the bulk of the work of the Hertfordshire commission after 1715, Herts R.O., Land Tax Misc. MSS.

55 Records from St Lawrence Parish show that well over half the households paying to the Poll Tax of 1692 had been or were to be represented in tax administration. Again using the presence of servants as a rough indication of status, one sees that the Southampton Commissioners (3·3 servants per household) were elevated above the rest of the parishioners (0·72), with assessors and collectors just distinguishable (0·9). Men who were to appear on the commission after 1692 shared the situation of those already on it. S.C.R.O., SC.14/2/48.

56 W.P.L. Wills (no inventories have survived); C.L.R.O., Asst Box 40/22 (for details of place of residence, property ownership, landlords, and tenants).

57 e.g. comments in Sir G. Fletcher to Sir D. Fleming, 4 May 1699 (Westd. R.O., D/DRY 5389); James to Sir John Lowther, 8 Apr. 1699; and to J. Gilpin, 16 Dec. 1712, 3 Mar. 1713 (Cumbd. R.O., Lonsdale MSS D/Lons/W); and Sir C. Musgrave to J. Grahme, 27 May 1705 (Westd. R.O., Levens MSS Box D, File M) – ‘I am sure to dispute about your taxes must be ridiculous to the last degree and may bring ill consequences to the whole country [i.e. county].’

58 Other than by a close scrutiny of appeals. Many Commissioners only appeared when appealing for themselves, or their friends, usually, but not always, successfully. Appeals were more frequent against Poll than Land Tax assessments, so appeals became less significant after the end of the Poll Taxes in 1698.

59 For examples of close scrutiny see Bristol A.O., 04277 (2), 10 Apr. 1678; and, from the North West, where the Commissioners, fearing Treasury intervention, insisted on reassessment, Westd. R.O., Le Fleming MSS D/DRY 5130, 5137, and Box 23/3 (P. Musgrave to Sir D. Fleming, n.d.). A proposal that Commissioners should withdraw whilst their own areas were being assessed was rejected by the Commons, ostensibly on a procedural technicality (Journals of the House of Commons, x, 776, 12 01 1693).Google Scholar City of London ward assessments were approved by those Commissioners resident in the ward. Local knowledge could no doubt be put to good use in such a situation: but so too, with a differenr meaning to ‘good use’, could personal interest.

60 In many cases, the Commission contained men who had been assessors and collectors them selves, and so knew the problems involved.

61 Parliament's decision of 1698 to fix quotas on counties rather than hundreds left the door open for much intra–county squabbling, cf. Ward, , op. cit., esp. pp. 20–22 and 31 (for these Hampshire troubles cf. S.C.R.O. SC. 14/1/7, 2 02 1692).Google Scholar

62 It is perhaps significant of the ‘low profile’ which the central government kept in Land Tax matters that the Tax Agents became the Commissioners for Hides in 1711, and signed their letters from the Hides Office.

63 Surviving material largely concerns relations between the local Commissioners and the Receiver or his deputy, urging, e.g. speedy transmission of duplicates or remission of monies.

64 cf. Ward, , op. cit., sect. 1.Google Scholar

65 e.g. a letter about the Southampton Commission, mentioning the misspelling of several names, and the inclusion of a number of deceased men (Blenheim Palace MSS F.i–16); and a similar complaint about inaccuracies which could lead to legal problems in J. Bird to Sir D. Fleming, 9 Mar. 1697, Westd. R.O., D/DRY 5119. James Lowther frequently feared that the Cumberland list had been deliberately sabotaged by alterations, to Gilpin, 7 June 1701, 24 Jan. 1708, 12 Feb. 1708, Cumbd. R.O., Lonsdale MSS, D/Lons/W.

66 Ashburnham to R. Spiller, 25 Mar. 1703, E.S.R.O., Ashburnham MSS 844, p. 168.Google Scholar

67 e.g. the Herefordshire Commissioners discussed weirs on the rivers Wye and Lugg, BM, Port land Loan, 29/184, f. 255, Robert to Sir E. Harley, 20 Aug. 1689 (I am grateful to the Duke of Portland for permission to examine his manuscripts).

68 e.g. James to Sir J. Lowther, 22 Apr. 1699, passing on Sir George Fletcher's advice that the Cumberland General Meeting should take care to ‘tye down the Commissioners about Millom, that they cannot oppress the rest of the Division’ (Lowther Letter Book, D/Lons/W/2, Cumbd. R.O., Lonsdale MSS); Westd. R.O., D/DRY 5248.

69 e.g. Ashburnham's having his son put onto the Commission in those counties where his estates lay, E.S.R.O., Ashburnham MSS 842, p. 164, Ashburnham to James Mackburnye, 11 Mar. 1699.

70 e.g. P. Papillon to Rev. J. Lewis, 6 Feb. 1714, ‘You do not design to act yourself but you judge it may be of service to you to defend you from that person who is so very severe and hard on you’, Kent A.O., U.1015/C45, p. 195.

71 Sherratt, J. to Coke, T., 17 02 1702, H.M.C. Cowper MSS, ii, 454.Google Scholar

72 The one example of gentry or Commissioner dictation which I have found is cited in n. 44.

73 Interestingly, in Winchester, some men promoted to the Commission by virtue of being Mayor for the year did not continue on the Commission after the end of their term of office (but neither did they revert to assessing or collecting). Thomas Merriott, maltster, mayor in 1714, is an example: on the other hand, John Blake, gent., mayor in 1704 did retain his place on the Commission.

74 In some places necessarily so, because of the shortage of qualified men: in Lincolnshire, the clerk forged signatures (P.R.O., E.134 r3 & T4 William III, Hilary 25, evidence of William Hardy); cf. Cal. T. B., passim; Ward, op. cit., p. 31; Tax Agents to A. Huddleston, Cumberland and Westmorland Receiver, Westd. R.O., D/DRY 5095, 16 Feb. 1697.

75 Ward, , op. cit., p. 30.Google Scholar

76 Surrey, R.O., Kingston Records, Land Tax Minute Book, 1724–1757.Google Scholar

77 Ward, , op. cit., pp. 50–53.Google Scholar

78 The Bristol Riots…, 1714, p. 8 (? by Defoe).Google Scholar

79 The number ranged from 84 in 1705 to 116 in 1708. Commissioners from other parishes could attend (J.H.C., xi, 220, 2 02 1695)Google Scholar but I have only come across a couple of occasions when the St Margaret's Clerk noted the presence of such outsiders.

80 Thus in 1711 30 per cent of the attendance came from a dozen Commissioners who had not acted in 1710 (though several had in preceding years).

81 In 1711, 14 of the 41 (34 per cent) Commissioners who had attended in 1710 did not attend; but they had been responsible for only 11 per cent of the ‘man-days’ worked in 1710, attending only 17 as against an overall average of 5 meetings. The corresponding figures for 1712 vis-à-vis 1711 were 16 of 49 (34 per cent); 17 per cent of the ‘man-days’; and an average attendance of 2·9 as against 5·7 meetings.

82 Though Sir Christopher Musgrave had been proscribed in Cumberland and Sir Daniel Fleming in Westmorland (Westd. R.O., D/DRY 5092, 5099, 5101, Feb. 1697, for adverse comments on Fleming's exclusion).

83 Hunter was assessor and collector in New Palace Ward, 1705–10 and for those years after 1693 for which evidence survives. He was a Churchwarden in 1710–11 (significantly, immediately prior to his joining the Land Tax Commission) and last attended the Land Tax Commission on 3 Nov. 1726.1 have as yet found no other evidence about him.

84 Though in January 1694 Parliament rejected a proposal that mayors, bailiffs, and aldermen should automatically be Commissioners (J.H.C., xi, p. 63).Google Scholar

85 cf. Ambrosi, C., ‘Répartition et Perception de la Taille’, Rev. d' Hist. Mod. et Contemp., viii, 1961, pp. 281–99;Google ScholarTemple, N., ‘French Towns under the Ancien Régime', History, LI, 1966, pp. 16–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

86 Kent A.O., Sandwich Muniments, SA/RTz/4/6–8; E.S.R.O., Rye MSS 84.

87 e.g. W.P.L., E.2516 front, 10 Dec. 1694.

88 See the introduction to Ralph and Williams, Bristol Inhabitants.

89 Including, at Southampton, the future Excise Commissioner, Thomas Everard, who also appeared on the Commission at St. Margaret's, Westminster, but rarely attended.

90 A decision reflected on the local level by the practice of the Southampton Commissioners of giving assessors copies of the previous year's assessments to help them. Ipswich went even further: assessors were ordered in 1724 to ‘assess as last year was collected’ (my italics). Ips. & E. Suff. R.O., Ipswich Borough Records, AX/1/10.

91 For occasional examples of men fined for neglect, non-attendance, or refusal to act, see P.R.O., E.182/901 (Arreton, Isle of Wight, 1697, levied), and 430 (Canterbury, 1696, remitted).

92 Landowners, of course, grumbled, but at the use to which the tax was being put: complaints about the principle of the tax were fewer after the mid-1960s. And even the hard hit smaller land owners of the Midlands paid their taxes: they did not engage in tax strikes, or rebellion.

93 Mousnier, R., ‘L'Evolution des Finances Publiques en France et en Angleterre…', Rev. Hist., 1951, LXXV, 1–23.Google Scholar

94 Indeed, governments can be faulted for not backing up their minions. Tax officials in England never knew the apparent security of Colbert's splendid, ‘N'épargnez personne, vous serez soutenus’ (quoted by Prestwich, M., Cranfield, Oxford, 1966, p. 225). But then perhaps Colbert was merely raising expectations unreasonably high.Google Scholar

95 Robert Cleargate, of Peasmarsh, Sussex, had a stamp of his signature, which he used for the 1693 Parish assessment, and for his appearance on the Sussex Grand Jury in 1696. On his death in 1716, he was worth £970 2s 7d – of which, £579 4s od was in good debts on bonds, bills, etc. E.S.R.O., MS D.472; Inv. 826; QR/E/267, 16 Jan. 1696.

96 e.g. St Lawrence Parish, Southampton, 10 Apr. 1716. S.C.R.O., PR.4/2/1; order of Sussex Quarter Sessions at Chichester that Henfield and Woodmancote should follow the i2d Aid of 1689 in proportioning their Poor Rates, E.S.R.O., QO/EW/10, 20/21 Apr. 1691. I think that F. D. Price, in his valuable introduction to his edition of The Wigginton Constables' Book (Chichester, 1971, p. xix)Google Scholar overstates the involvement of the parish constable in the actual collection of the assessed taxes. Constables oversaw the formal mechanisms of setting tax collection in motion; on occasion they acted as carriers of money, wrote up assessments, or acted as collectors. Constables' accounts with such references include, Warwk. R.O., DR/19/161 ff. (Astley); CR.284/104 (Pinley); CR.136/V/144 (Chilvers Coton); N. & N.R.O., PD.m/128 (Bressingham); Ips. & E.S.R.O., FB.130/I2/29 (Gislingham); Portsmouth C.R.O., Portsea Records, 11A/16/473 (8s 6d expenses on land tax business at Fareham not allowed, 1733). In St Margaret's, Westminster, ‘ancient inhabitants’ and the constables helped recover deficiencies (W.P.L., E.2521, 12 July 1709).

97 Interesting comparative material exists in St Jacob, Documents.

98 As the Southampton Commissioners immediately noted (S.C.R.O., SC.14/1/10, 27 Feb. 1697). £i 10s per day was allowed. The total cost in 1698 was £30, 660 (P.R.O., T.1/64/3). The London Commissioners worked 1958 days, the Huntingdonshire 70, the Anglesey 31. Unfortunately no such record appears to have survived for any other year.

99 At New Romney in 1693, Commissioners and assessors were forced by a deficiency on the original assessment to include themselves in a revised version of the Poll Tax (Kent A.O., NR/RTp, 22 May 1693). At Hayes, the assessors and those who wrote out the assessments had, before 1688, been able to reimburse themselves out of the regular overplus; after 1688, there was none.

100 Peter Rudge, tailor, of Westminster, in the spring of 1693 led a group of Commissioners who managed to have their appeals against being rated as ‘gentlemen’, rather than ‘tradesmen’ upheld (for comments on this practice, see the introdn. to Ralph and Williams, Bristol Inhabitants); but by the time he made his will in 1710, he had put his tailoring and his fiscal subterfuge behind him, and styled himself ‘gentleman’ (W.P.L., £.25143 and Will 1430). Cf. the careers of Bristolians moving through tax and parish administration, onto the Vestry, the Common Council and the Land Tax Commission (e.g. George Newland of St Stephen's Parish (Bristol A.O., Vestry Minute Book).

101 I hope to present information on this, based on Poll Books for Winchester, Hampshire and Southampton, and Bristol and Gloucestershire, at a later date. Preliminary research indicates that Commissioners, whether whig or tory, were firmer in their political loyalties, than were assessors or collectors, who were more frequently ‘floating’ voters.

102 S.C.R.O., SC.14/2/18, 12 Dec. 1650.

103 Everitt, , Community of Kent…, p. 24.Google Scholar