Stamp Duties Act 1783 (Source: Wikipedia)
The Stamp
Duties Act of 1783 (23 Geo.III c.67) was passed by the House of Commons in order
to raise money to pay for the American War of Independence. Under the provisions
of this Act, all baptism, marriage and burial entries in each parish register
were subject to a tax of 3d (old pence). Church ministers were empowered to
collect the duty, and were allowed to keep 10% of this fee as compensation for
their trouble. Refusal to pay carried a fine of five pounds.
This was a
deeply unpopular tax, and many clergymen were sympathetic to the plight of their
parishioners, and as paupers were exempt from this tax, it is not uncommon for
family history researchers and genealogists to find that the number of supposed
poor people within a parish has increased many times above normal during these
years until the act was finally repealed in 1794. Such entries in a parish
register are annotated with either the letter "P." or "Pauper". If a family
could not claim exemption then it was not unusual for them simply not to bother,
and this would result in a number of adult "late" baptisms during the following
decades.
This transcription is rather long so I've split it into four sections as follows:
Surnames A-F | Surnames G-K | Surnames L-Q | Surnames R-Z |
© Bill O'Reilly 2009
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