1.1 Preamble
The aims of this book are to attempt the rehabilitation of English land taxes and explain the chronology of their success . Colin Brooks attempted something similar in 1974, despite his own modesty, against a tide of land tax denigration from Ward and others. 1 Ward’s flawed, but well-established 1953 analysis has been widely accepted, and Brooks largely ignored, by historical narratives focusing on state institutions, bureaucracy and the excise tax with its paid officials. This has led to a misunderstanding of the origins, chronology and reasons for the success of English land taxes. Indeed, reading some texts it is difficult to understand how land taxes raised such remarkably large amounts of money for English state coffers. Part of the challenge is to look in the right place and at the right time. Central state records are sparse because land taxes were administered locally in cities, towns, hundreds and parishes. Local tax record survival is generally poor because there were few legal requirements to protect them. Survival is patchy at best. Three case studies are the main, but not sole focus here because of their better document quality and heavy tax burdens: the county of Kent and the cities of London and Bristol. The weight of tax is important. Land taxes were paid against an amount or quota set by parliament, and some parts of the country for historical reasons escaped lightly. Perhaps too much land tax research has targeted such lightly taxed areas where old methods of tax-gathering persisted. The three case study areas were all heavily taxed, and their combined contribution represented over ten per cent of national direct taxation throughout this period. It is only by studying such areas where significant tax sums were levied and raised that it is possible to comprehend the scale of fiscal challenges and measure success. It is also important to consider the right period. Many historians rightly point out the debt owed by post-revolutionary levies formally termed ‘Land Tax’ in contemporary statutes to the earlier ‘assessments’ and ‘aids’ going back to the 1640s. This book goes slightly further and argues that all the main features of the later ‘Land Tax’ were created during the Civil War and Interregnum and the term ‘land tax’ was in common usage. It is therefore right to use the term ‘land tax’ from 1643 to describe all these taxes.
England’s avoidance of significant military engagement for decades prior to the Civil War meant the state was sparsely funded by outdated and declining traditional taxes despite the country’s increasing wealth . A series of seventeenth-century military engagements required new sources of funding, and fresh levies were designed to meet this demand. Land taxes, excise and reformed customs were deployed which could tap into the wealth of the developing English economy and successfully fund civil wars, trade wars and continental conflicts over the next 70 years. The assessment or land tax emerged in the 1640s and was arguably the most successful seventeenth-century levy as the primary supply for three Anglo-Dutch wars , the Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession . These new land taxes were successful because in many parts of the country they were, contrary to some accounts, a ‘radical departure ’ 2 in direct tax form, mechanics and process from what had preceded them and were capable of tapping growing cashflows from commerce and rent for the services of the state. Many of those who had benefitted most from England’s economic growth now filled traditional local authority roles as justices of the peace, aldermen, mayors, sheriffs and common councilmen and could be pressed into tax administrative service for the state. Administration was patriarchal and if often diligent in land tax-gathering, a few officials evaded or avoided other forms of taxation. But these same men also championed the reform of poor relief, the repair of highways, street lighting, the administration of justice and the development of their local economies.
This book was partly inspired by the diligent Interregnum efforts of Joshua Pix , Anthony Webb and Thomas Catlett , high-collectors in the sub-lathe of Upper Scray in Kent, who promptly collected far greater amounts of direct taxation from far more people than any of their predecessors. 3 How did they achieve this? Fortunately, they created excellent and still extant documentary records which can be interrogated. There appeared to be something markedly different about this new tax, and it was described in different terms by contemporaries as a rent-tax and soon after as a land tax. These Kentish individuals and dozens like them across the county and thousands countrywide were a fundamental part of successful tax-gathering. This book was also inspired by the author’s professional career first as a tax inspector witnessing appeal cases to the local General Commissioners 4 —those extraordinary unpaid volunteers so unfairly derided in direct tax historiography—and later as a tax manager in industry.
The argument expounded here is that the widely recognised mid-seventeenth century and later English fiscal success (Fig. 1.3) was founded on the gr...