Catalogue description Tithe Commission and successors: Tithe Apportionments

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Details of IR 29
Reference: IR 29
Title: Tithe Commission and successors: Tithe Apportionments
Description:

The Tithe Commutation Act 1836 aimed to change payments of tithe (a tax to support the church) from in-kind to money in the form of tithe rentcharge. These tithe apportionments were created to record liability to pay tithe rentcharge. 11,830 tithe districts were apportioned and mapped: 10,871 in England and 959 in Wales. The apportionments generally set out the names of the holders and occupiers of land in each tithe district (usually a parish or township), the acreage and use of each parcel of land, the amount of tithe rentcharge payable and the names of the tithe owners. Until 1936, subsequent altered apportionments were added after the original apportionments.

Note: A major project in 2011-2012 provided fuller descriptions of the tithe maps. The National Archives gratefully acknowledges permission for use of data from Professor Roger Kain's and Dr Richard Oliver's Exeter University research on the tithe surveys in the 1990s, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy. For more information about these maps, see their publication
Date: 1836-1936
Arrangement:

The tithe apportionments are arranged by counties, firstly for England and then for Wales, named as they were at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign: Hampshire was listed as Southampton; Monmouthshire was at that point counted as an English rather than a Welsh county. Within each county, parishes are listed alphabetically. Parish names are those given on the tithe documents, with a modern place name in square brackets, where the name has changed.

Related material:

Tithe files which contain correspondence of the Tithe Commission concerned with proceedings for the commutation of tithes are in:

IR 18

Separated material:

Tithe maps were drawn to act as a graphic index to these tithe apportionments, and together form what was termed the Tithe Survey. The maps were separated for storage reasons, because they are usually larger than the apportionments: they are now in:

IR 30

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Board of Agriculture, Land Commission, 1889-1903

Copyhold, Inclosure and Tithe Commission, 1851-1882

Home Office, Land Commission, 1882-1889

Tithe Commission, 1836-1851

Physical description: 11830 roll(s)
Access conditions: Available in microform only
Publication note:

The Tithe Maps of England and Wales, Roger J P Kain and Richard R Oliver, (Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback edition 2011). Maps for Family and Local History, chapter 3, Geraldine Beech and Rose Mitchell, readers guide 26, The National Archives, 2004

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