Hearth tax records provide an invaluable resource for family historians because of the information they contain on the personal names, locations and size of dwellings of our early modern ancestors.

The hearth tax return for London and Middlesex enriches our understanding of the status and livelihoods of a significant number of Londoners, and the ways in which they responded to the taxation of their homes in the period between the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.

The hearth tax was introduced into England, Ireland and Wales following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and was charged on fireplaces in all homes and many non-domestic buildings at the rate of two shillings per hearth each year. It was collected twice a year in March (Lady Day) and September (Michaelmas) between 1662 and 1689 in England and Wales, although most of the extant records date from the 14 years between 1662 and 1674 inclusive. Coverage of the different counties is variable. Lists are divided between assessments, which recorded liability to pay, and returns, which noted the sums collected, and there are also a large number of exemption certificates and collectors’ records. After 1663, households which were exempt on account of poverty were also listed in hearth tax lists, and thus these sources provide data on a wide social spectrum.

The regulations specifying who paid the tax changed over time and were interpreted in different ways locally, but in general a domestic property was liable if it had an annual rental value of more than 20 shillings or if the household contributed to poor and church rates. In 1664 a remaining loophole was closed with the insistence that all households with two hearths had to pay even if they qualified for exemption on other grounds.

The most recent addition to Hearth Tax Online (see box) is a database searchable by surname and parish for the London and Middlesex hearth tax return of 1666, which was published as a two-volume edition in 2014. This enables users to access data from the 32 books which made up the return, recording the heads of households in 39,588 properties across 98 parishes in metropolitan London and 8,325 properties in 84 parishes in rural Middlesex.

Name variations
Genealogical research has been hampered by the difficulties faced by the scribes in the 17th century in recording accurately the personal names which were read out to them. The difficulties of transcription were compounded by the fact that surname forms were not fixed. To overcome these problems, the surname search for London and Middlesex can be used with as little as three letters: “sum” locates 24 references to the surname Sumar/ Sumars/ Sumer/ Sumers/ Sumner/ Sumners/ Sumors, and “som” has three references to the same surname rendered as Somares/ Somer/Somers. The search for “som” and “sum” reveals references to other names with this syllable, such as the surname Ransom/ Ransome/ Ransum. This variation in spelling can be explored in more detail within the return as in ten books there are varying degrees of duplication. In book 11 part 1 the names and occupations of the heads of household, together with payment details, were recorded for September 1666, and book 11 part 2 has similar data relating to April 1666.

Comparison renders useful observations. In book 21 the entry for Colonel Legge in the Little Minories Precinct in parts 1 and 2 is notable because his name was consistently spelt as Legg, and because he refused to allow the collector and his subordinates to collect the hearth tax from his 90-hearth home. However, there are some interesting variations in the names which follow Colonel Legge’s.

There is only a minor change in spelling for Mrs Shertrigh/ Mrs Shortrigh, a widow in a three-hearth home who, being unable to pay, had no personal items of value which could be seized (distrained) in lieu of payment (the term “no distress” meaning that there was nothing to distrain). There is, however, a greater difference between John Seamore and John Sumer with three hearths and nothing to distrain, and between Ruben Damport and Reuben Damper in a four-hearth property for which the tax had not been paid.

Surname research and family history would be greatly assisted by the full publication of all of the hearth tax lists for London and Middlesex. Many details of people’s lives might be deduced. Comparison of the 1663 and 1666 returns suggest that Thomas Speed, for example, died between 1663 and 1666, and his widow Hannah, recorded as the head of household in the 1666 return, had divided the home on the north side of Cheapside. She paid the hearth tax due on her two-hearth property, and she may have let out or sold the main part of the family home with five hearths to one Daniel Holloway.

Occupational data
For 21 City of London parishes there is occupational data for more than 1,700 people working in over 200 occupations. These ranged from an accountant (John Jeffries living in a five-hearth property in Montacute Court) to a yarnman (Thomas Dobson in a one-hearth dwelling on London Bridge), and included Thomas Farrinor, a baker in a six-hearth house and shop in St Margaret New Fish Street parish, whose listed oven was reputed to be the origin of the Great Fire.

Around one third of these occupations were open to women and in some areas women were well represented, such as in providing food, drink and accommodation. Perhaps the Great Plague of 1665 opened up opportunities for women to work in areas otherwise often dominated by men. In the banking sector, 48 men worked as goldsmiths, but Magdalen Elliot, a goldsmith, lived in a six-hearth property on the south side of Jewins Street, and Mary Early, also a goldsmith, lived in a four-hearth household on Cary Lane. These women had joined the group of City financiers led by Sir Robert Vyner and the goldsmiths who lived on the north side of Lombard Street in properties with between three and 11 hearths.

The artists, Conrad Wildesbury (six hearths) and Sir Peter Lely (17 hearths), the choirmaster Randall Jewett (seven hearths) and the dancing master Edward Claxton (three hearths) lived next to residents who worked in trades ranging from a boxmaker to a stonecutter. The actors Nicholas Burt and Walter Clun lived well in five- and ten-hearth properties respectively. On Church Lane near Long Acre, rooms were let out sometimes on a weekly basis to prostitutes in three four-hearth properties owned by Mr Hume, Anne Houston and Dame Parmiter.

Parts of the 1666 hearth tax return not only provide key information on the status and occupations of the residents of London, but also give us a sense of the sounds and smells of the streets in which heads of household – and their families – lived and carried out their daily business.

Migrations
London was exceptional in the late 17th century because there was no great concentration of local surnames unlike in other localities. For instance, the Welsh surnames Powell, Price and Evans were distributed across parishes in metropolitan London, suggesting that many of these heads of household had ancestors who settled in London in earlier generations. However, more helpfully, there is some information on when some householders left or moved into their properties. This information was recorded because it enabled collectors to note payment liability.

In the parish of St Andrew Holborn between April 1666 and June 1667, two female and 28 male heads of household moved into properties of between two and five hearths, indicating that these occupants belonged to the middling ranks and the labouring population. In the Middlesex parishes to the west of London there was a more marked emphasis upon low-grade housing being newly occupied. In Old Brentford, Ealing, Harlington and Hammersmith, nine of the 13 newly occupied properties had two or three hearths. Other investigations might be able to indicate when these new arrivals were last recorded living in rural England and provincial cities and towns, thereby enabling family historians to track the migration of ancestors into London and its hinterland.

The London and Middlesex 1666 return can provide fascinating insights for genealogists into the livelihoods and situations of people in Restoration London, especially when it is used in tandem with other sources.