Catalogue description Lancashire Land Tax Assessments

The information given in the returns comprises:

the name of each proprietor, or owner of property, in the township

the name of the occupiers

the amount of tax assessed

The returns may be useful for family or local historians but it can sometimes be very difficult to identify land-holdings, owners and tenants and in many cases it is obvious from other sources that many names have not been recorded

The Lancashire assessments were formerly arranged in yearly bundles for each of the six Hundreds in the county. In 1999, to facilitate use by researchers, they were rearranged so that they are now stored in township bundles within each hundred and arranged chronologically within each township

To order Lancashire Land Tax Assessments:

Use a separate document request slip for each item

Fill in the date, your name, your seat number and your CARN Reader's ticket number

Fill in the reference like this:

the mnemonic for land tax - QDL/

the year you want

the initial letter of the Hundred

the number of the township you want

eg: QDL/1790 / A / 4 is the reference for the 1790 land tax assessment for the township of Barton in the Hundred of Amounderness

The Hundreds are:

A Amounderness

B Blackburn

L Leyland

LN Lonsdale North of the Sands

LS Lonsdale South of the Sands

S Salford

WD West Derby

nb: Land Tax Assesments for townships which were in the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974 should be held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service HQ at Wakefield

Further reading: Short Guides to Records 16: Land Tax Assessments, H G Hunt, Historical Association [Local Studies Library reference: A01 SHO ]; The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, David Hey, OUP, 1996 [Local Studies Library reference: A01 OXF]

Land tax, a form of direct, national taxation, was first established in England and Wales in 1693 and not abolished until 1963. The tax was assessed variously at different times, but during the 18th century became a tax assessed on land, buildings and various forms of rents. Each county had a quota to raise and the assessment was based on the value of land in 1693. In 1798 the tax was fixed at 4 shillings in the pound and made a permanent charge on the land with Proprietors being given the option to redeem it at 15 years' purchase

Very few assessments survive except for the period 1780-1832 when they assumed additional political importance in being used to establish voting qualification at county elections: An Act to remove certain Difficulties relative to Voters at County Elections, 20 Geo III c. 17 (1780) stated that from 1 January 1781 no person should vote in respect of any lands which had not for 6 months previously been assessed by a Land Tax

Returns of the total valuation of township lands were made each year by local assessors nominated by special commissioners (usually JPs) appointed for the purpose. A copy of the assessment was displayed publicly in each township, often nailed to the church door, and a revised duplicate of the assessment was sent to the Clerk of the Peace for enrolment. These duplicate assessments were in effect a list of people eligible to vote - a prototype of the electoral register - and they ceased to be made after 1832 when the Representation of the People Act 2-3 Will IV c. 45 enlarged the county franchise and instituted printed registers of electors