The London and Middlesex Hearth Tax: an analysis of the status and wealth of neighbourhoods and households on the eve of the Great Fire

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The Project arises from the recent completion in early 2006 by volunteer transcribers of the transcript of the London and Middlesex Lady Day hearth tax return. Breaking with the established practices of the British Academy Hearth Tax Project, the London Hearth Tax Project is seeking both to broaden and to narrow academic approaches: the former through the application of Information & Communications Technologies, and the latter through the posing of precise historical questions. This initiative requires a level of funding and an academic support network far beyond the resources of the funders which have supported the British Academy Hearth Project hitherto (please see 'Other Support' section). The London Hearth Tax Project would meet its objectives (please see 'Objectives' section) through the completion of two major outputs: 1. a two-volume hard-copy edition of the 1666 return, which would also include a series of historical essays addressing the Project's research questions, as well as a critical edition of the 1666 text; and2. an online database and Historical Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for London and Middlesex in 1666, which will be integrated with other online historical resources hosted by British History Online .In order to complete this work, the London Hearth Tax Project will employ its own professional consultants who specialize in palaeography, archival research, statistics and Historical GIS, complemented by the expertise of the Centre for Metropolitan History at the Institute of Historical Research and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, University of London. The Project would be able to deliver value for money while guaranteeing the highest academic standards because of the combination of the work of volunteers (who are committed to genealogy and family history) with historical auditing processes as set out in the attached Project plan. In short, the Project will enrich understanding of people and places in early modern London through the combination of hard-copy and electronic analyses, which would be highly valued by professional and non-professional historians.