THE LAND TAX and WEST DERBY HUNDRED G. J. Wilson, B.A. THE
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THE LAND TAX AND WEST DERBY HUNDRED 1780-1831 G. J. Wilson, B.A. HE land tax returns made between 1780 and 1831 have T survived for most parts of the country and have attracted the attentions of many researchers.1 Investigation of the returns has tended to concentrate upon what they reveal about developments in the composition and structure of agricultural land holding. Other aspects of the tax have been comparatively neglected. This article attempts to provide an overall view of its operation within an important and highly diverse region, and also to consider what light this sheds upon problems concerning its use. The tax evolved during the final decade of the seventeenth century. A General Aid of i6g2 2 had set out to tax personal estates including salaries, profits, lands, tenements, tithes, mines and mortgages. Its encompassing nature has been interpreted as an experiment to create a primitive type of income tax but in the event the experiment failed.3 Subsequent re-enactments during the decade yielded progressively smaller sums and, to prevent the steady attrition of its revenue, parliament eventually laid down that the tax had both to yield the same rate as in 1692, and had to be raised from each district according to the proportion that it had paid in 1692. Inequalities that had probably existed from the start were exacerbated by decades of change and development and its unfairness became notorious among the land-owning community. Early records survived in a fairly haphazard fashion but in 1780* a new act required that a copy of each return be sent to the clerk of the peace to assist in establishing the right of individuals to the franchise. By this time the tax had been levied for some years at a rate of 43. in the pound from which it was never to be reduced. Until 1831 when the act was repealed a largely complete record of the returns was maintained. Interpreting the large body of information, available for most counties, has created controversy and some conclusions, once confidently drawn, have been called into question. West Derby 64 G. J. Wilson Hundred presents the usual difficulties and has one problem which is less common. ROMAN CATHOLICS AND THE LAND TAX The era in which the tax developed was one of militant anti- Catholicism, at least on the part of the legislature. The land tax reflected this for the original 1692 Act stipulated that: every papist or reputed papist shall yield and pay unto their majesties double the sums and rates why by force or virtue of any clause in this Act before mentioned or contained he or she should or ought to be charged with. At the time of its enactment it would have been hard to find an area with more Papists than West Derby Hundred. The clause should have had a significant impact upon the area but as with so much anti-Catholic legislation it is difficult to assess exactly how rigorously it was enforced. On the 1781 returns only ten5 of the one hundred and three townships enumerated Catholics as a distinct group. When the tax commenced in the 16gos Catholic landowners were present in far more than just ten townships and though their numbers had diminished by the 17805 they were still to be found in townships which were not declaring them in 1781.° By this date, at least, certain townships were not complying with the terms of the original legislation. Such compliance as there was diminished as the decade continued. By 1786 Aughton, Great Crosby, and Ince Blundell, had ceased to distinguish Catholics from the general body of landholders and the practice was being gradually dis continued in other townships. With regard to the matter of double rating in only three of the ten returns of 1781 in which Catholics were distinguished was it specifically stated that they were being double assessed. When the twenty-eight payments at Aughton were incorporated with the rest of the return there was no marked change in the levels of assessment. A number of Catholics had reductions of a few pence but for others there were none at all. At Great Crosby and Ince Blundell too, land tax contributions remained virtually unaltered. Indeed when in the case of Ince Blundell, its tax system was revised in the early 17905' some Catholics finished by paying more on their land tax assessments. In these townships Catholics were frequently involved in the administration of the tax acting as assessors and collectors. While it seems unlikely that their assessments were really double at this time there is evidence that other townships, particularly Bickerstaffe, Burscough, and Scaris- Land Tax 65 brick, were more rigorous in their actions. They maintained the distinction between Protestants and Catholics into the early i ygos. When Scarisbrick finally ceased to do so in 1793 some of its Catholic payments were considerably reduced. Thomas Eccleston's demesne taxation fell from £22 8s. 8d. to £14 i8s. 7|d. In the same year, Bickerstaffe and Burscough continued to differentiate between their landholders but Catholic assessments nevertheless fell significantly by almost half in some cases. These townships had anticipated the government's attempt in I7948 to abolish double rating, perhaps they had been influenced by the 1791 Toleration Act. The extent to which anti-Catholic clauses in the land tax were being enforced during this period seems to have varied from one township to another depending on local circumstances. The choice of terminology, from the somewhat pejorative 'Papists' at Aughton and 'Romanists' at Leigh, to the more respectful 'Roman Catholics' at Ince Blundell (where they clearly enjoyed some considerable preponderance) also indicates a variety of local attitudes. Despite this lack of uniformity Mingay's reference9 to a land tax record from Aughton earlier in the eighteenth century was unfortunate. The inconsistencies which he noted might well have had their origin in the religious clauses discussed, though his overall point was probably quite valid. While it is difficult to speak with confidence of the effect of double rating within townships throughout the eighteenth century, the situation is even less certain with regard to its effect on their comparative standing. Some of the township assessments had, presumably, been increased by the presence of Catholic land holders in the 16gos though their number and importance varied considerably.10 The majority of areas seem to have contained some Catholic landholders and in several cases virtually the entire township was in Catholic hands. It is noticeable that the town ships still recording Catholics in the 17805 were situated in the west of the hundred where some major Catholic demesne holders still remained. There had been more of these in the iGgos in particular the Molyneuxs, later earls of Sefton, who had held land in many places. It seems likely that such powerful figures would have attempted to mitigate the unwelcome religious pro visions, especially since the assessments were made locally by local people. It is possible that such strongholds had fared better in respect of avoiding heavier taxation than more scattered Catholic landholders in other parts of the hundred. The overall situation can only be a matter of speculation but the maximum distortion that could have been created by the special Catholic rating would have been a doubling of the normal township sum. Allowing for 66 G. J. Wilson the varying numbers of Catholics within townships and the influence of powerful Catholic land-owning interests, the effect on 'average' was liable to have been much less. Nevertheless the total contributions of townships within West Derby Hundred, and indeed any area which contained Catholics in the 16905, must be approached with caution. Even assuming that the 1692 assessments were made in a proper, or at least comparable, manner across the hundred (and that is to assume a great deal), they would provide an unreliable guide to the com parative economic importance of the townships. AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE LAND TAX Table I (see Appendix) shows the contributions of townships within the hundred based on the returns of 1781. There were obviously wide differences between the assessments. In 1692 coal mining was likely to have been of significance within only a small number of townships11 and outside a few market towns and centres of local industry such as Prescot, Ormskirk and Warring- ton the main economic activities must have been concerned with agriculture and some cottage industry. The latter would have been difficult to incorporate into the tax12 and it seems likely that the assessments of the majority of townships reflected their agri cultural basis. The most obvious factor determining the extent of agriculture was the size of the townships. Table II provides a ratio of the acreage of the townships to their land tax contri butions.13 There was a tremendous range of acres to the pound. At one extreme Prescot, Ormskirk and Warrington as market towns can be readily explained, while at the other extreme Rainford, Bickerstaffe and North Meols were townships situated in exceptionally inhospitable marsh and heath lands. Grouping the townships into sections does clarify the figures to some extent. Almost eighty per cent of the townships fall between twenty and sixty acres to the pound but this is still a considerable range and is too great to be accounted for by the effect of the Catholic double rating clauses. Two of the more extreme ratios Bickerstaffe and Lathom were both likely to have been among the penalised districts and presumably penalties would have moved them nearer to the norm. E. Davies' ideas14 concerning the correlation between the acreage and assessment of parishes within certain counties was unlikely to have had any application within even this small section of Lancashire.