The Hearth Tax for Liverpool

[Hugh Tornabene]

Around 1663 the names of about 350 residents of Liverpool (what we would these days call down town Liverpool) were recorded, listed by street of residence.
These names are still available, likely kept in original documents at the National Archives in Kew.

A transcribed list was published around 1680 as part of a book. This book was republished and is now available free on line in the wonderful Google library of old books.

I have digitized this list and it is available for free at a small site:
https://sites.google.com/site/liverpool ... yspre1840/
along with other old lists of Liverpool residents.

Here is my question.
This Hearth Tax list is a new discovery for me. It only covers central Liverpool. Not even Everton.
Does anyone know of the whereabouts of Hearth Tax lists, available on line, for other parts of
greater Liverpool, or perhaps of Hearth Tax lists for other years?

Hugh Tornabene

[Hilary]

The Hearth tax returns were done for the places within the area of the Hundred so Liverpool appears in that of the West Derby Hundred. All the original returns are held at the National Archives. The 1662 lists have been filmed and there is a copy of the film at Lancashire Record Office. On that you should find the other places you are interested in.

For any other dates you would have to go to the National Archives. There you get to handle the original returns made on vellum.

The returns are not available on line.

[MaryA]

Hello Hugh, and welcome to the forum. Our paths have crossed before and your digitised lists have been very welcome. We have links to some of them on our Websites board, where I will move this post to after a short while so that it will be found whenever it is searched for.

It doesn't seem to me that a great deal has been done about Hearth Tax lists, Roehampton University appears to be researching the subject but so far information about the Hearth Tax is what is available, rather than data.

The other archive where something might be available is the National Archives site http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/reco ... th-tax.htm where there is an E179 database, although I have to admit understanding this, without more in depth reading about it, has yet to sink into my brain.

Don't know if any of this is of any help but maybe some of our members might have more suggestions.

[Hilary]

I think Liverpool Record Office may have a copy or transcript of the film I mentioned above. You could check their catalogue.