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
Hearth tax coverage, state of the manuscript, approximate number of names included, and details of complete or partially published editions. An additional resource for hearth tax research is Elizabeth Parkinson’s study of the establishment of the tax and the complexities of its administration in the period 1662-66. This work provides assistance with deciphering the technical details of hearth tax documents, which otherwise might appear to be little more than lists of names and numbers. A principal focus of interest in the hearth tax lies in its application for understanding the distribution of wealth among social ranks within geographical areas. The method of