Week 38: 'Unusual Source' - The Hearth Tax.
I hadn’t looked at this type of source before.
I was glad I did as I found on ‘The Burgh Hearth Tax Roll of 1694’ that James Dewar had to pay tax on 1 fire hearth in Dunfermline, Fife.
James is a 6th Great Uncle on my Paternal line. He was born about 1635 in Dunfermline and married Margaret Hunter in Edinburgh on 25 July 1672.
This source tells me that he was possibly a labourer with little income and living in a one or two room dwelling as a tenant of Mr. Henry Davidson. It would have been a hardship I imagine to pay the 14 shillings.
“Most of the [Scottish farming] population was housed in small hamlets and isolated dwellings. The most common form of dwelling throughout Scotland was the longhouse, shared by humans and animals. Vernacular architecture made use of local materials such as stone, turf and, where available, wood. About ten percent of the population lived in the burghs, in a mixture of half-timbered and stone houses.”
A Scottish Lowland farm from John Slezer's Prospect of Dunfermline,
published in the Theatrum Scotiae, 1693.
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The Hearth Tax
“It was introduced in England and Wales by the government of Charles II in 1662 at a time of serious fiscal emergency. The original Act of Parliament was revised in 1663 and 1664, and collection continued until the tax was finally repealed by William (of Orange) and Mary (wife Mary II) in 1689. Under the terms of the grant, each liable householder was to pay one shilling for each hearth within their property for each collection of the tax. Payments were due twice annually, at Michaelmas (29 September) and Lady Day (25 March), starting at Michaelmas 1662.
It was introduced in Scotland in 1690 by the Scottish Parliament in a one-off attempt to pay off its debts to the Shires and Burghs and reduce the arrears of army pay.
It was payable at Candlemas - February 2nd, 1691, by both landowners and tenants, and the rate was 14s per hearth. Only hospitals (almshouses) and the poor living on charity from the parish were exempt.
The principal collector for Scotland was James Melville of Cassingray and sub-collectors were responsible to him for compiling lists in their areas.
There were huge difficulties in collecting the tax, particularly in highland or remote areas. Collection dragged on for several years until August 1694 when a proclamation called for all hearth lists to be sent to the treasury before 1 October.
Some lists give the names of the exempt poor, but unfortunately, Dunfermline's is not among them.
Dunfermline's list is arranged under the names of the heritors of property, some of whom owned several tenements. The names of their tenants are listed with the numbers of hearths in each 'house'. A dwelling house for most people at that time consisted of just one or two rooms, so tenants with more than two hearths were doing well for themselves. Not all rooms were heated so a tenant with only one hearth may have been living in more than one room. The rate of 14s per hearth was a lot of money for some people to find and in some cases, they would not tell the collector how many hearths they had. The number was only obtained 'after search', as is noted in the list.
The names have been modernised and the information tabulated.”
Name No of Hearths.
Henry Davidson’s Lands:
Henry Davidson 1
TENANTS:
Robert Stewart 1
John Main 2
John Christie 1
John Main 1
James Aitken 1
David Main 1
John Lyon 1
John Brown 2
James Dewar 1
plus more.
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Information in Wikipedia tells about farming in the 17th century:
“Famine was relatively common, with four periods of famine prices between 1620 and 1625. The English invasions of the 1640s had a profound impact on the Scottish economy, with the destruction of crops and the disruption of markets resulting in some of the most rapid price rises of the century.
Under the Commonwealth, the country was relatively highly taxed but gained access to English markets. After the Restoration, the formal frontier with England was re-established, along with its customs duties. Economic conditions were generally favourable from 1660 to 1688, as landowners promoted better tillage and cattle-raising.
Arable farming grew in the Lowlands, particularly around the growing urban centres like Edinburgh.
Agricultural improvement began in the late seventeenth century in the Lothians and central Scotland, with the use of lime to combat the acidity of the soil, trees were planted, new crops introduced including sown grass and the rotation of crops. Three acts of parliament passed in 1695 allowed the consolidation of run-rigs and the division of commonties and common pasture and small-scale enclosures began to be carried out.
(Run-rig was a system of land tenure comprising an area of cultivable "in-bye" land and a larger area of pasture and rough grazing.)
Highlanders had been droving cattle on the hoof to the Lowlands since at least the sixteenth century. By the 1680s the trade had expanded to the larger English markets.
Cattle were crossed with larger Irish breeds and large parks were constructed by Galloway landholders to hold and fatten cattle. By the end of the century, the drovers' roads had become established, stretching down from the Highlands through south-west Scotland to north-east England. From there some were driven to Norfolk to be fattened before being slaughtered in Smithfield for the London population.
Specialisation continued, with the increasing commercialization of sheep farming in the Borders as English markets opened up after the Union of Crowns in 1603 and dairy becoming a feature of farming in the Western Lowlands.
The closing decade of the seventeenth century saw the generally favourable economic conditions that had dominated since the Restoration come to an end. There was a slump in trade with the Baltic and France from 1689–91, caused by French protectionism and changes in the Scottish cattle trade, followed by four years of failed harvests (1695, 1696 and 1698-9), known as the "seven ill years". The result was severe famine and depopulation, particularly in the North.
The famines of the 1690s were seen as particularly severe, partly because famine had become relatively rare in the second half of the seventeenth century, with only one year of dearth (in 1674) and the shortages of the 1690s would be the last of their kind.
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References:
References:
National Archives of Scotland ref E69/10/1 : The Burgh Hearth Tax Roll 1694,
Wikipedia.
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