The land tax in East Kent: a study in land ownership and occupation with special reference to the methodological implications of the land tax assessments

The central theme of this thesis has been the tracing of the patterns of landownership and occupation in the St Augustine East division of Kent. The main source has been the land tax assessments and these have been used to trace the changes in the agricultural structure in the division over the period 1780-1831. They have also been used to trace the changing pattern of owner occupation in the division and the agricultural structure in selected parishes between 1698 and 178O. The agricultural structure showed considerable stability over this period with the exception of tenurial change so These point to a decline in owner occupation between 1710 and 1740 and an increase between 1780 and 1814. A multivariate analysis of the known inputs and outputs in the agriculture of the area has been undertaken to show the relationship between the agricultural structure and the different systems of agricultural production during the last decade of the eighteenth century. Before the land tax assessments could be used for this purpose, it had to established that they were not too imperfect as a source. This was made necessary by the adverse statements in the literature. The administration of the land tax was examined to see whether there were any administrative reasons why the assessments could not be used. The main methodological problems considered were the degree to which non-agricultural property is present in the assessments, the way in which the assessors treated property rights, the relationship between the tax. paid and the acreage of holdings, and the problems of identifying the proprietors and occupiers.