Land Tax started in 1692 and remained until the mid 20th century. Between 1780-1832 copies were required to be sent to the Clerk of the Peace of each county to be used to establish the right of those eligible to vote in parliamentary elections (not everyone paying land tax had that right). Thus returns for those years are generally complete whereas before and after very few have survived. The returns are arranged by parish and/or tithing. The tax for 1780 was 4shillings in the Pound. Most Land Tax lists are in County Record Offices but for one year, 1798, there is a copy of all lists for the country in the Public Record Office. By following the lists for a number of years the succession of members of a family may be found.
This transcription of Land Tax for Wiltshire is in three parts.
Places, with Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre reference number.
The list showing owners and occupiers in each parish, the value of the land, and tythings. The value given in many cases is for multiple ownership and multiple occupancy. In this transcription the amount is given once with brackets for the other names.
3 An alphabetical list of owners and occupiers.
For those parishes where the 1780 list has not survived the nearest one in date has been used. These dates are shown in the list of parishes.
The transcripts are presented in a public domain format (pdf) file which can be read by the program Adobe Acrobat Reader or any other program that will read pdf files. Searching can be undertaken by using the built in Adobe Reader search facility. Windows users can use bookmarks to drill down to individual index entries or to the nearest year for events in the transcripts. For Apple Mac users the file should open in Preview. Click the View button and select Table of Contents. The ability to print has been disabled but copying has not. As with any transcript users are advised to consult the original material, which is at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. Please inform Wiltshire FHS of any errors or omissions by emailing [email protected]