Now! Then! Leeds borough returns for the hearth tax, designed to pay for the household of Charles II

Excerpt

	Inhabitants [liable]	Stoves
Leeds Town	174	422
Leeds Briggate	221	525
Leeds Kirkgate	115	263
North part of Leeds Main Riding	169	311
South part of Leeds Main Riding	78	156
East part of Leeds Main Riding	94	156
Chapel Allerton	56	109
Potternewton	21	41
Farnley	33	45
Wortley	33	57
Bramley	56	93
Headingley-cum-Burley	38	76
Beeston	54	127
Holbeck	117	182
Armley	52	78
Hunslet	120	204

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Original

In the year 1663, a subsidy called “hearth money,” was granted to the crown by Act of Parliament as an additional revenue, which was afterwards known by the name of the house and window tax, a customary duty as old as the conquest, when it was called “fumage,” and vulgarly “smoke farthings.” It amounted to the sum of two shillings on every hearth, in houses paying to the church and the poor. Warrants were accordingly issued by the Justices of the Peace of this Borough, to the constables of the several townships comprising the same, commanding them to give notice to the various owners and occupiers of houses of the intended impost, that returns might be made of what hearths, or stoves, were in their respective possessions, in order to their being taxed. The returns relating to this borough, dated the 14th of July in the last mentioned year, are very fortunately preserved amongst the records of the corporation, from which the following information as to the number of inhabitants in each township liable to pay the tax, and also the number of hearths, or stoves, in their possessions, is extracted, namely:

	Inhabitants	Stoves
Leeds Town	174	422
Leeds Briggate	221	525
Leeds Kirkgate	115	263
North part of Leeds Main Riding	169	311
South part of Leeds Main Riding	78	156
East part of Leeds Main Riding	94	156
Chapel Allerton,	56	109
Potternewton,	21	41
Farnley	33	45
Wortley	33	57
Bramley	56	93
Headingley-cum-Burley	38	76
Beeston	54	127
Holbeck	117	182
Armley	52	78
Hunslet	120	204

The above extracts make a total of 1431 inhabitants, possessing 2845 hearths, or stoves, in this borough; but, as the returns are incomplete in several places, there would be rather more than those numbers, which would make very nearly the sum of £300 to be contributed by this borough… This tax, so “grievous to the people,” was repealed by the statute of I William and Mary, cap. 10.

416 words.