Land Tax

The land tax was in force from 1692 to 1961 and was designed to tax personal estate, public offices and land.

The records are likely to be found amongst Quarter Session records, estate and family archives, or in parish collections. For this area the records are likely to be at Staffordshire Record Office except for returns for the Seisdon Hundred (covering Wolverhampton) 1799-1846, which are held at Lichfield Record Office.

Survival of the returns is patchy with the best-preserved period being 1780-1832, when duplicate returns may be found in the Quarter Session records. They were retained as a means of establishing who was entitled to vote and after electoral reform in 1832 they were no longer required for this purpose. Almost the entire returns for 1798 have survived and are held at the Public Record Office (class IR.23).

Information in the returns was standardised on forms from 1798 and contained the following: