Tithes were originally payments made in kind to the clergy of the parish to support the church and its incumbent. By the nineteenth century, there was a hodge-podge of arrangements for paying this tax to the church. “An Act for the Commutation of Tithes in England and Wales" (more commonly known as “The Tithe Commutation Act”) was passed in 1836 to convert in-kind payments to monetary payment on a standardised basis set out in the Act. Previous commutation agreements remained in place.
Transcribers for Wiltshire FHS have transcribed names of owners and occupiers, plot names and measurements recorded in every Tithe Apportionment held by Wiltshire & Swindon Archives.
The descriptive headings used in the apportionments have been replicated and (with a few exceptions) followed the order in which the plots are recorded within the documents.
This publication comprises an Introduction, Place Index, Name and Institution Index and a full transcript, in all 4027 pages.
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]