"… a thorough and complete enumeration of the inhabitants of every parish in England, with a full and precise statement of their several names, occupations, and qualities, was made in 1695 … A copy of the assessment was returned into the Exchequer.
… in 1694 … an Act was passed … which imposed, for a term of five years, from 1st of May, 1695, a graduated scale of duties upon marriages, births, and burials, and upon bachelors and widowers. No one was exempt from these duites, except those in receipt of alms. The amount of the tax was 4s. for every burial, 2s. for every birth, and 2s. 6d. for every marriage ; but, besides this, bachelors above twenty years of age, and widowers without children, paid 1s. a year as long as they remained unmarried.
Considering that no less than ten copies of this assessment were made in every parish in England in the course of the five years during which this Act was in force, it might be expected that one or more of these statutory lists of inhabitants would be found in almost every parish chest. But the fact is that they are extremely rare, for the tax was so unpopular that the local authorities took pains to destroy the machinery for levying it … It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if these lists of inhabitants were generally destroyed as soon as the Taxation Act expired, and the few which have been preserved are commonly found in the hands of laymen. This list printed below was inherited by Viscount Hardinge, amongst his family papers. It bears the signature of his ancestor, Robert Hardinge, Esq., of King's Newton, one of the two Justices of the Peace for Derbyshire, who, in pursuance of the Act, signed and allowed the assessment for the parish of Melbourne in 1695."
The census was signed by John Ragge & Sam. Symes (Assessors), John (illegible) & Owen Maples (Collectors), H. Heveningham and Robt. Hardinge.
1695 Census Surname Index A-J K-W X Y Z
1695 Census Transcript 1-100 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 501-600 601-650
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This transcript © 2000 Brett Payne