During the Commonwealth the government needed to
raise money by taxes. The Royalists had exhausted the country’s finances to
support their cause. The Parliamentarians, with Oliver Cromwell as the Lord
Protector, introduced a Hearth Tax which they argued was fair on everybody. The
more hearths you had in your house the more tax you should pay. Those with only
one were exempt – paid nothing.
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The
Distribution of hearths recorded in the Hearth Tax returns in the 1670s |
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Number of Hearths |
Number of houses in each category |
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St Neots 1674 |
Eynesbury 1674 |
Eaton Socon 1671 |
|
1 |
131 |
58 |
21 |
|
2 |
38 |
29 |
13 |
|
3 |
16 |
10 |
4 |
|
4 |
21 |
3 |
7 |
|
5 |
13 |
2 |
4 |
|
6 |
5 |
2 |
- |
|
7 |
3 |
2 |
- |
|
8 |
4 |
- |
2 |
|
9 |
- |
- |
1 |
|
10 |
1 |
- |
- |
|
11 |
- |
- |
- |
|
12 |
1 |
- |
- |
|
13 |
- |
- |
- |
|
14 |
1 |
- |
2 |
|
15 |
1 |
0 |
- |
|
Total |
235 |
106 |
202 |
An analysis of the Hearth Tax returns for St Neots,
Eynesbury and Eaton Socon in the 1670s shows that the majority of houses had
______________________________________________________________________.
The
better off middle class houses were found in _______________ and
______________. The number of hearths they had was
_________________________________________________________________________________.
The
returns for St Neots in _____ showed that there were _____ houses in the town.
Over half of these paid no tax because they were so poor. However there were
four houses with ________________. Mr Woodstock lived in the largest which had
_____.
________________
had the least number of wealthy houses. The largest had ___________ and was
occupied by Mrs Norman. ______ of the _____ households paid no tax because
_________________________________________.
The
figures for Eaton Socon are slightly misleading as they included the nearby
hamlets. There were ____ houses with almost _______________ having only one
hearth. Two houses had ____ hearths, one being occupied by Gaius Squire, the
Lord of the Manor and the other was William Gery who lived at Bushmead Priory.
All together there were _______ houses in the area. If the average number of people living in one household was six – mother, father and four children, the population at this time was about_______.