Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 1 (2007), p. 134

The main purpose of this book is to describe the unusually full tithe records of the old parish of Barking, particularly those predating the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. With 12,307 acres until 1830, Barking was one of the largest parishes in the county. Other Essex tithe records are also discussed; notably those for Ilford, also a large parish.

The volume begins with a chapter discussing the origins of tithe and the historical evolution of tithing practices and customs up to 1836. The author notes the transition from collection in kind to collection in cash by the late middle ages, and early instances, as at Newport in 1704, of commutation of small tithes for an agreed local rate. The documentary record is the subject of Chapter Two. Informal tithe accounts were kept by incumbents in volumes which sometimes became general account books, containing references to Easter offerings, glebe accounts or occasional household expenses. Often the arrival of a new incumbent or a dispute would prompt a full farm-by-farm survey of tithe obligations, such as that undertaken at Barking by Isaac Johnson of Woodbridge in 1805. ‘Tithe causes’, initiated by incumbents or lay impropriators against recalcitrant tithe payers, left their own paper trail as cases were pursued through the courts. There were 484 tithe suits in the ecclesiastical court of the Archdeaconry of Essex between 1571 and 1609 alone.

Chapter Three traces the origin and evolution of the arrangements under which the tithes of Barking Abbey were farmed, by the Abbey itself from the later fifteenth century and by the Crown after the Dissolution. The activities of Thomas Cartwright, vicar of Barking from 1660 to 1688–9, are the subject of Chapter Four. An assiduous accumulator of ecclesiastical preferments, culminating in his elevation to the see of Chester in 1686, Cartwright was equally dedicated to improving his income from the Barking tithes. He launched twelve tithe cases in the Court of Arches soon after acquiring the Barking living, and commissioned two surveys of the parish, one in collusion with the lord of the manor.

Chapter Five shows how tithe surveys continued under some of the eighteenth-century incumbents. They included ‘Mr Fiddes Green Book’, compiled in 1727–8, and another survey, commissioned by the Revd William Stephen, which appears to date from 1750, though it relies to some extent on one of the surveys made during Cartwright’s time. Christopher Musgrave, appointed in 1762, was soon active in determining what was rightfully his. His first account, dating from 1763, is a new and complete schedule of liabilities to vicarial tithe, and suggests increased income from root crops and garden produce.

Chapters Six and Seven treat documents more tangential to the Barking tithes but useful complements to their study. The archives of Ilford Hospital, which include surveys of lands in Barking earlier than those found in any other source, are touched on in Chapter Six, while Chapter Seven considers the usefulness of hearth tax lists, rate books, parish registers, vestry minutes, wills, manor court records and large-scale Ordnance Survey maps when interpreting the Barking tithe documents. A final chapter outlines the research potential of the unusually large number of documents relating to the tithes of Barking, and an appendix gives useful summary information about the sources.