This important list contains the names of all the 6404 inhabitants of Westmorland (not including the Borough of Kendal) who in 1674 had a hearth on which to cook or warm their shins. They are arranged under the 133 constablewicks into which the county was divided, and are followed by the number of hearths for which each person was liable (ranging from the Countess of Pembroke, Lady Anne CLIFFORD herself, with 40 at Appleby and 24 at Brough, to the humblest of the 4795 Westmerians who had one single hearth). At the end of each constablewick is subscribed the name of the constable and the surveyor who together went round to collect the data.

For about two-thirds of the constablewicks the date of the survey is given, always between December 28^th 1674 and March 25^th 1674/75. It was clearly made as part of an attempt by new tax farmers to start with a full and accurate list of those liable (see below - "Historical Background"). In most but not all of the constablewicks the names of hamlets or individual important houses are given, but in every case the householders seem to be listed not alphabetically or in order of social status but in the order in which they were visited and listed as the constable and the surveyor road past or exercised their right to come inside and see for themselves.

So for instance we can follow Reynold HARLE from Middleton in Lonsdale on February 10^th via Natland on 19^th, Lonsleddale and Kentmere on 22^nd and so via Staveley, Troutbeck, Grasmere, Langdale to Loughrigg in 26^th. HARLE and his colleague Richard BELL surveyed 121 of the 133 constablewicks and were clearly working under the orders from above (see below0 so it is a very uniform document. No copy of the return was kept by the Treasury, since collection was in the hands of the farmer and his chimney men, but Daniel FLEMING, had a copy made - a letter to FLEMING from John JOPLING, one of the four surveyors, dated 8^th Jan. 1674/75 promises, "If he will have the duplicates of the survey made, they shall be handed in a the next sessions."

This, or a copy of it, preserved at Rydal and now in KRO, is the present document. It was presumably made for reference in the case of disputes, of which there were plenty.

The list includes about 50% more names than the 1669-70 hearth tax lists which were printed by Farrer in "Records of Kendale", and this makes it important for family historians. It will also be of great use to local historians because it frequently gives the names of hamlets and even some individual houses within constablewicks, and indicates in some areas, though not systematically throughout the County, when someone other than the occupier may be liable e.g. in Casterton - "Tho. BARKER per Mr. WILSON. 5" followed by "Wm LOGAN per Mr. WILSON 1." It looks as if LOGAN and BARKER both occupy houses belonging to Mr. WILSON. (Casterton Hall and a cottage nearby). The list gives some but not many occupations, and mentions 3 bakehouses, 10 smith's shops, (four of them in Kirkby Lonsdale) and 9 schoolhouses, but clearly does not do thy systematically enough to support conclusions about the total number of these useful places.

The Hearth Tax of 1662-1689 was an unpopular and unsuccessful attempt by the Restoration Parliaments to compensate the Crown for the feudal rights abolished during the Civil Wars, and to bring in a system of direct taxation so that the unpopular excise and monthly assessments developed by the governments of the Interregnum could be abolished. Two shillings a year was in theory due in half-yearly installments for each hearth, with a complex system of exemptions for the poor. [2] Two shillings was 4 days wages for a man reaping in 1667 [3] in the Kendal area, and perhaps half a year's rent for a cottage in Stavely. [4]

At first, in 1662, assessment and collection used the existing machinery of local government, the petty constable, the high constable of each ward, and the sheriff. When this failed, producing only about one third of the expected £300,000, the work was transferred to Government officials, the hated "chimney men", and then to tax farmers, London business-men who paid an agreed sum to the Treasury and employed their own collecting agents. In April 1674 the farm was let to three Londoners for 5 years from Michaelmas (for £151,000 p.a. plus a down payment of £25,000). [5] These gentlemen appointed John RAILTON, of Carlisle, Gent, as their agent in Westmorland. A copy of his letter of appointment dated 13 June 1675 is in the Rydal MSS, though RAILTON was already working in Westmorland on the survey which produced the present document on 8^th March 1674/75.

By 1674 the county had twelve years' experience of this tax and of the disputes it produced. Lists had been made of those liable and those exempt, including the lists for 1669-70, now in the PRO, which were printed with the records for each township in Farrer, but the new tax-farmers of 1674 clearly needed an up-to-date and accurate list, so our present list was made "by his Majesties officers and the severall Constables in their respective Constablewicks" that is, presumably, by the "chimney men" employed by the new farmers. RAILETON, who was to be responsible for the Westmorland collection surveyed the last constablewick, Bampton Patricke, in person on Lady Day, March 25^th 1675.

It was vital to have as full a list as possible. If someone other than the occupier might be liable to pay the tax, it was important to have that person's name as well as the occupier's. If a house was in multiple occupation it was important to list those taxable, lest one valid exemption conceal other people who ought to pay. The lists themselves take no account of exemption - that was a matter to be settled later by certificate from the curate or a JP. The result is that this list is much fuller than the earlier one. In the 1669-70 lists for Kendal ward (excluding the Borough of Kendal) there are 1391 named people, including 267 "discharged by certificate", while in 1674 there are 2108 - 51% more. The difference is no doubt mainly because the later survey was made by the agents of the tax-farmer determined to leave no hearth out, and the earlier one probably by the constable on his own, keen not to offend too many neighbours.

But another important factor was the separate listing of tenants of single rooms. (For instance in Langdale two adjacent 1674 entries are "Michael GRIGGE, 1 hearth" and "Michael GRIGGE, senior, 1 hearth" whereas in the 1669 return Michael GREGG (sic) had two hearths, but had a certificate of exemption.) This makes it hazardous to use the lists as indicators of population. It is clear from the Rydal papers that the new survey was followed by bitter arguments about the tax and about the actions of the chimney men. Notes of petty sessions held at Ambleside by Daniel FLEMING and Christopher PHILIPSON on 24^th November 1675 include details of 24 cases brought by RAILTON about disputed tax in the area from Staveley to Langdale.

A draft, undated but from internal evidence after 1673, poses 13 hostile questions about the rights of the chimney men - for instance "may not the Justices order treble damages for their [the chimney men] exacting any fee or sum of money for the executing of their office or for levying of any money unlawfully?" There are also a number of draft complaints against the chimney men which appear to be drafted by FLEMING for use by aggrieved tax-payers.[7]

In a letter [8] dated 30 July 1675 Nathaniel JOHNSON, clearly one of the collectors, complains to FLEMING about the behaviour of the Kendal Justices in hearth tax cases, insists that the temporary walling up of hearths must be treated as a fraudulent piece of tax-dodging, and that the Justices should accept the evidence of the tax officials. It seems pretty clear that they had given more credit to their neighbours and tenants, the tax-payers.

Perhaps the clearest evidence of public attitudes to the tax comes from 1688 in a letter from Edward WILSON JP of Dallam to FLEMING. Mr. BOURNE, a hearth tax collector, had been trying to distrain on the goods of tax-defaulters in Arkenthwaite, and "was put in that danger to have been strangled with his servant or stabbed by them." The constable had been called in to help, but "fearing they would be ill to take, [he] tooke eight or ten men of his neighbours with him." Despite this he had not made an arrest. "I know not how these people will be taken for these neighbours say that the whole constablewick [of Milnthorpe] dare not meddle with them because of the father and the two sons Robert and Richard. I think the posse comitatus will be little enough to take them and the punishment by the Act too little. Your advice and assistance is desired in haste. [9] Arkenthwaite had just 15 people liable to the tax, out of Milnthorpe's 1339 1674 figures). It does not seem that there was much enthusiasm to support the tax collectors. It is not surprising that the hear tax was abandoned in 1689.