PARKHAM CHURCH RATE 1674

Devon Record Office - Exeter Diocesan Records/Moger/Church Rates/[Parkham]

Transcribed by Arthur Dark

This transcript is made available in GENUKI/Devon, on the strict condition
that it is used only for research purposes and not for any commercial enterprise,
by kind permission of the Diocesan Registrar.

Note: The Parkham Poor Rate return of 1640 lists 79 names and the heading above the list contains these words: "authorised one whole year from the 19th April Anno Domini 1640 for this year following, to rate and paye every inhabitant or occupier of land within the said parish of Parkham to be payd monthly as followeth." The Church Rates of 1674 and 1675 contain similarly modest numbers of ratepayers; 45 in 1674 and 49 in 1675. It needs to be borne in mind, however, that the rating lists did not by any means cover all the inhabitants of Parkham, notwithstanding the phrase "all the inhabitants". There is some evidence that the poor, who were excluded from paying rates, constituted a substantial proportion of the population.

In the Hearth Tax Return of 1664 for Parkham, for example, the list of those chargeable for their hearths is mutilated and total numbers impossible to estimate accurately, but there are 38 names clearly readable in the list of those excluded from paying the tax by reason of poverty (none of whom had more than one hearth). The most accurate seventeenth century indicator of the size of the adult male population of Parkham seems to be the Protestation Oath Returns of 1642, which are complete and list 149 males as having subscribed to the Oath, thirteen as being recusants plus the 8 signatures of the parish officers; a total of 170. Multiplying this figure by a very conservative 2.5 (425) to include women and children suggests a bigger population than that which might be implied from rating lists alone and that a substantial proportion was living in poverty.

Brian Randell, 15 Oct 2011