Taxation; Hearth Tax

The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available.

The Hearth Tax was created under an Act of 1662 and was levied intermittently between 1662 and 1689. Households were assessed according to the number of hearths they owned.

For 1672 there are two assessments for Wakefield; one is held at TNA and one is held by WYAS: Wakefield ref. C1065. These two assessments are different! The TNA version appears to be a copy of the original Wakefield list. The Wakefield version is a fair copy of the original notes made by the assessors, and it has been amended before being copied up as the TNA version.

See also Wakefield Historical Society Journal no.5 1978 for a transcript of the 1672 returns.