Taxing Times

As you file your taxes this April, spare a thought for your 18th-century ancestors, says
Felicity Day

William Pitt, the prime minister, made a startling fiscal announcement in November 1797. The sum total of taxes paid by a household on so-called luxuries in the previous year – things like horses and dogs, servants and carriages, windows and watches – was to be arbitrarily increased threefold, or even five-fold in some cases, in the coming year. It was, he assured dismayed taxpayers, only a temporary measure, implemented “for the safety of the country”. Nevertheless, many of our ancestors were alarmed at the prospect of an unexpectedly hefty bill. Novelist Frances Burney, then in the process of building a new house, swiftly decided to part with four of its planned windows; and Lord Willoughby, like many of his peers, wrote to his bank appealing for a loan.

The ‘Triple Assessment’ was just the latest in a long line of heavy tax increases shouldered by