What is a Hearth tax you ask? Well, this was a tax instituted by the government of Charles II in 1662 because the government desperately needed money, with King Charles being newly restored to the throne, they needed a regular supply of money.
The government had figured out that King Charles needed 1.
2 million pounds sterling to run the country, but by 1661 they had a shortfall of around 300,000 pounds, and this was where the hearth tax came in.
It was supposed to fill this gap in the country's income.
This tax continued to be collected until the beginning of the reign of William and Mary and they stopped it in 1689 as a bid to win popularity for themselves.
This tax never got anywhere near realising the 300,000 figure the government had expected.
For years it never got up to 200,000 and near the end of its life it topped 200,000 but still didn't get near the 300,000 pounds.
From 1661-1689 homes in England, Ireland and Wales were taxed according to however many hearth's there were in their homes.
People whose homes were worth more than 20 shillings for rating purposes had to pay 2/- per year for each hearth.
Now I would imagine that constituted a huge sum in the 1600's.
Although this tax was repealed in 1689 Scotland levied a hearth tax in 1691.
People who met the criteria as to who would be eligible to pay it were allowed to pay in two installments, one on Lady Day [25th March] and the second at Michaelmas [29th September], luckily though the poorest people were exempt from this tax.
The lists for England and Wales are in the National Archives, Class E179.
Those for Scotland are in the National Archives of Scotland.
These hearth tax records are reckoned to be a very important source of population details for England from the Domesday Book right up to the 1801 census.
There is an almost complete set of records, excluding parts of Devon, Sussex and four counties in Wales for the years 1662-1666.
You can find these missing counties however, in the returns for 1669 - 1675.
This means that you have records for the whole country somewhere.
Some counties even have multiple lists so you can compare the results just in case there are differences.
The hearth tax was payable in England from 1662-1689 but the records which are still available mostly cover 1662-1666 and 1669-1674.
The lists show the occupiers of the houses, not the owners and also number of hearths which were in the house.
Even though a person, who because they were quite poor, was exempt from paying the tax, they were still shown on the list and it was noted that they did not pay the tax.
From this, if someone on your family tree were included would give you an idea of their economic situation.
What would be great would be if anyone researching their family history were able to search for all of England and Wales in one place, through one search engine, by county/parish.
If this would be possible it would work like the US 1790-1840 census which you can currently view through Ancestry.
com or Heritage Quest.
Plus, for those who prefer hard copies, these lists are being published in volumes.
The University of Surrey, Roehampton started on this work in 1999, they worked with the Public Records Office and any volunteers they could get, who could help with scanning all images and creating an index which could be viewed over the internet.
They received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and were able to produce a master microfilm which is lodged with the National Archives showing the Hearth Tax listings.
The relevant portions are being given to each and every record office in the country.
Obviously this is such a huge project that it is still ongoing, even now.