Agricultural History Review, Volume 58 Part 2 (2010), p. 283

Seventh in the British Record Society Hearth Tax series, the volume for Warwickshire is a monument to the excellent research and analytical skills of its editors. In addition to a transcript of a full set of returns and a selection of exemption certificates, it offers an extensive introduction to using the returns, in conjunction with other records, to illuminate a very wide range of features of Restoration Warwickshire. Although the detailed discussion of the administration of the Hearth Tax (pp.12–23) applies specifically to that county, the guides to the various methods of collection tried by the government – sheriffs, receivers, farmers and receivers again – and to the qualification for exemption are lucid accounts of complex issues that will be invaluable to anyone studying the Hearth Tax.

Apart from Coventry, which was assessed separately, Warwickshire is blessed with no fewer than eight virtually complete returns. In his meticulous analysis of the 1670 lists, however, Arkell concludes that even these are far from perfect; for example, about 4 per cent of the householders were named incorrectly (p.43). Moreover, since there are numerous inconsistencies in household numbers, including exemptions, within each parish, he urges caution when using tax returns as indicators of household numbers in a community. Perhaps he is being rather too negative here, since such problems are only apparent precisely because so many Warwickshire returns have survived; elsewhere one has to use what few returns are available, and be grateful.

There is a complex analysis comparing the county’s towns with their rural hinterlands. Arkell reconstructs rural ‘sub-regions’ of at least a thousand households by ‘spotting those parishes that were broadly similar and then grouping them together’ (p.62), the similarity being the proportion of households with three or more hearths. Although he justifies these groupings, the written analysis of his findings does not always tally with the percentages plotted on Map 3. The histograms illustrating hearth numbers within individual parishes (Figure 1) provide much more convincing graphic evidence of differences between various regions.

Arkell then deconstructs the connection between the number of hearths in a house and the householder’s social status (pp.73–87). Looking at the ‘meaner sort’, for example, he compares the occupations of non-chargeable and chargeable male householders. He concedes, not surprisingly, that ‘simple hearth numbers alone can rarely be equated with different occupations or status’ (p.87), not least since occupational data rarely disclose dual employment. ‘Wealth and poverty: the elusive issue’ (pp.88–102) reassesses the crude equation of wealth with hearth numbers that has bedevilled many previous studies. Arkell analyses a sample of 50 probate inventories using various methodologies – calculations not only of the total inventory value, but also of ‘material wealth’ and ‘consumption goods’ – and compares them with hearth numbers but, again, few clear correlations can be identified, not least because crop values varied according to the time of year. His analysis of poverty (pp.97–102) is particularly sophisticated: drawing on various poor relief records he demonstrates that contemporaries distinguished between those of the ‘poorer sort’ who did or did not receive relief, as well as between those who did or did not pay taxes.

Within the introduction there is a marked inconsistency in the geographical units used to assess the significance of the returns. In his own analyses, Arkell has consistently followed contemporary parochial boundaries by drawing together relevant ‘constableries’, chapelries and ‘ends’ into whole parishes. In the mapping section, however, Alcock has attempted to retain those smaller units as separate areas, but has only done so where their boundaries can be defined. The various maps showing percentages of households with particular numbers of hearths follow the style of those in previous BRS volumes: the Hearth Tax Project’s funding dictates the presence of such maps, but this reviewer has yet to be convinced of their usefulness.

Alcock’s section correlating standing and depicted houses with Hearth Tax returns is fascinating. Particularly relevant is the design and construction of Warwickshire housing: much work on the Hearth Tax has ignored local building styles, which dictated the number of hearths almost as much as the ‘wealth’ of the builder or occupant. The discussion of the use of coal for fuel draws attention to different methods of heating, although braziers, which did not need a hearth, are not mentioned: in coal-burning areas, one hearth did not necessarily mean only one heated room. The detailed analysis and tabulation of 681 probate inventories that can be linked to hearth numbers and room totals (Table 25) deftly dispels the fallacy that one-hearth houses (whether chargeable or non-chargeable) were by definition pitifully small, although of course the homes of those too poor to be inventoried probably were.

In addition to the comprehensive introduction, there are the returns themselves; detailed digests of those returns (Tables 28 and 29); separate indexes of persons, places and subjects; and two keys for the mapping units. Warwickshire historians are fortunate to have not only eight full sets of Hearth Tax returns but also such an all-encompassing printed volume, which, for all my gripes, contains the best introduction to any published returns and which historians of other counties would be well advised to read.