Hearth tax significant proportion of householders were not liable to pay at all. The hearth tax was much resented because it often entailed inspection of the interior of dwellings by the sub-collectors and petty constables, who had legal authority to enter every property to check on the number of hearths. Some people stopped up their chimneys so that the tax was not due on them, but where this was discovered by the assessors the tax was doubled. On 31 July 1684, a fire in Churchill, Oxfordshire, destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. It was apparently caused by
Thomas Wroth (politician, 17th century) Thomas Wroth (politician, 17th century) Sir Thomas Wroth (1584 – 11 July 1672) was an English gentleman-poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1660. Active in colonial enterprises in North America, he became a strong republican in the Rump Parliament but stopped short of regicide. Thomas Wroth was born in London, the eldest son of Thomas Wroth (died 1610) of the Inner Temple and of Blendon Hall, Bexley, Kent and his wife Joanna Bulman, daughter of Thomas Bulman of London. He was baptized at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, on 5 May