Tithe records

The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available. Please feel free to add or update with any additional information.

What were tithes?

Tithes were a local tax on agricultural produce. This tax was originally paid by farmers to support the local church and clergy. When Henry VIII abolished the monasteries in the sixteenth century, many Church tithe rights were sold into private hands. Owners of tithe rights on land which had previously belonged to the Church were known as ‘Lay Impropriators’. Tithe charges were extinguished in 1936.

What is a tithe map?

Disputes over the assessment and collection of tithes were resolved by the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. This allowed tithes in kind (wheat, hay, wool, piglets, milk etc) to be changed into a fixed money payment called a ‘tithe rent charge’. Detailed maps were drawn up showing the boundaries of individual fields, woods, roads, streams and rivers, and the position of buildings. Most tithe maps were completed in the 1840s.

What is a tithe apportionment?

The details of rent charges payable for each property or field were written up in schedules called ‘tithe apportionments’ . This part of the tithe award records who owned and occupied each plot, field names, the use to which the land was being put at the time, plus a calculation of its value.

Why are tithe records useful?

Tithe maps are very important because they are often the first large scale map of a particular area. The apportionments are a detailed inventory of farming and land use in the mid-nineteenth century.

Where can I find tithe records?

Three originals of each tithe map and award were produced. The Tithe Commissioners’ copy is now held at the National Archives in London. In most cases one or both of the two copies made for the local Church authorities are now held in local archives.

West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS) holds many tithe record for the West Riding of Yorkshire. The National Archives (TNA) may hold tithe records for the West Riding which the WYAS does not hold. Other local repositories such as North Yorkshire County Record Office also hold some parish copies of tithe records for the former West Riding. It is important to remember that not all areas were titheable or tithe records may not survive.

Glossary

Altered apportionment: Changes in ownership of land necessitated the re-apportionment of tithe rent charges, and a new or ‘altered’ apportionment was produced for the parcels of land concerned. A new map sometimes accompanied the altered apportionment.

Annuities: Annual instalments paid for a fixed number of years in order to redeem (ie to extinguish) tithe rent charges.

Apportionment: The legal instrument which specifies the amount of reformed tax (tithe rent charge) for each field or property.

Appropriate: See impropriate.

Award: Tithe commutation was achieved either by voluntary agreement between the landowners and tithe owners (made at a parochial meeting and subsequently confirmed by the Tithe Commissioners), or, if no agreement was reached, by a compulsory award by the Tithe Commissioners.

Benefice: An ecclesiastical living eg a vicarage or rectory.

Commutation: The replacement of tithes in kind with annual monetary payments.

Corn rent: Some tithes had already been commuted before 1836 by means of a ‘corn rent’, which was a continuing money payment. Corn rents were fixed according to the local price of grain (wheat, oats and barley). The Tithe Amendment Act of 1860 enabled pre-1836 corn rents to be converted into tithe rent charges.

Exemption from tithe: Reasons for exemption from tithe are normally stated in the agreement or award for tithe apportionment. In some areas, tithe had been commuted for money payments, or extinguished by award or exchange of lands in the course of parliamentary enclosure. Other reasons for exemption included crown land, former manorial or monastic land, the merger of tithes in the land, and the existence of local tithe moduses (see modus). First & Second class Amendments to the 1836 Tithe Commutation Act established two classes of tithe maps: first and second class. This is an essentially legal distinction; first class maps are legal evidence of all matters which they portray, whereas second class maps were considered evidence only of facts of direct relevance to tithe commutation. To the majority of tithe map users, this distinction is largely irrelevant.

Great tithes: Corn, hay and wood. Usually payable to the rector or, later, to a lay impropriator.

Incumbent: The holder of an ecclesiastical benefice eg a vicar or rector.

Impropriate: Impropriate was in early use applied to the annexation of the tithes of a benefice to a religious house. At the Reformation most of these impropriations passed into lay hands, so that the word came to be specially associated with the lay possession of tithes, the synonym appropriate being subsequently taken to designate the original sense.

(Lay) Impropriator: A lay person (ie not a clergyman) who owned tithe rights.

Merger: When the landowner was also the tithe owner, a situation was created in which an individual was effectively liable to pay tithes to himself. Such a situation was usually resolved by merging the tithes (or tithe rent charge) in the land, ie cancelling the liability to pay tithes by virtue of being also entitled to receive them. A Declaration of Merger effectively made the land tithe free.

Modus: A small customary payment in lieu of tithe. Moduses were particularly common in northern England, where they often applied over whole districts.

Queen Anne’s Bounty: A fund for the augmentation of the livings of poor clergymen.

Redemption: The 1846 Tithe Act enabled a landowner to extinguish a tithe rent charge by a lump sum payment to the tithe owner. The redemption money for rent charge owing to an incumbent was to be paid to the Governors of Queen Anne’s Bounty.

The 1918 Tithe Act allowed rent charge to be redeemed by means of terminable annual instalments or ‘annuity’ payments for a maximum period of 50 (later 60) years. Redemption annuities could themselves be redeemed (ie paid off with a single lump sum), or might be further apportioned if the land was divided or sold on. Redemption, if requested by the landowner, became compulsory, and could not be refused by the tithe owner.

The 1936 Tithe Act finally extinguished rent charges. The rent charges were redeemed centrally by the government, and tithe owners compensated by the issue of 3% government stock. Landowners paid a ‘rent charge redemption annuity’ to the Crown instead of a rent charge. These annuities were payable for a maximum of 60 years, but were often redeemed by paying a single lump sum, and were in fact extinguished prematurely by the 1977 Finance Act.

Rector: An incumbent of a parish whose tithes had not been impropriated.

Rent charge: Rent charges were based on the average value of tithes collected over the previous seven years. The annual payment that was subsequently collected was based on these rent charges, but adjusted according to the average price of wheat, barley and oats. Small tithes Usually held by the vicar of a parish, including animals and animal produce (wool, milk, eggs etc.) and the profits from mills and fishing.

Vicar: In early use, a person acting as priest in a parish in place of the real parson or rector, or as the representative of a religious community to which the tithes had been appropriated; hence, in later use in the Church of England, the incumbent of a parish of which the tithes were impropriated, in contrast to a rector.