Box People and Places
Latest Issue 35 Spring 2022 
  • This Issue
    • Gertie Butt
    • Fogleigh Residents
    • Murray & Baldwin
    • Guides 1920s and 30s
    • Noble Family
    • Stewart Family
    • Tunnel Inn
    • Anketell Family
    • Box Tollhouse
    • Institute at Box Hill
    • Memories of Nurse Chalinor
    • Gonks Recalled
    • National Service 1950s
    • Box Quarry Crane
    • More Operative Masons
  • Inter War
    • Postwar Hopes
    • Haunted by War
    • Improving Life
    • Timeline
  • Previous
    • Issue 34 - Fogleigh House
    • Issue 33 - KIngsdown Post Office
    • Issue 32 - Chapel Lane
    • Issue 31 - Saxon Box
    • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issues 20-29 >
      • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
      • Issue 28 - VE Day
      • Issue 27 - Northey
      • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
    • Issues 10-19 >
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
    • Issues 1-9 >
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • Series
    • Northeys
    • Box School Series
    • Box Farms
    • Box Library Project
    • NATS Trails
    • Prehistory
    • Roman
    • Early Medieval >
      • Vikings in Box
      • Box Before Normans
      • Common Field Farming
      • Conclusion
      • Wessex Under Attack
      • Boundaries of Box
      • Routes in Box
      • Late Saxon Locations
      • Society in Anglo-Saxon Box
      • Christianity in Box
      • Why Box is in Wiltshire?
      • Anglo-Saxon Evidence
      • Art and Craft
      • Why Speak English?
      • Box after AD 350
      • Britain in Late Antiquity
    • Feudal
    • Late Medieval
    • Tudor & Stuart
    • Georgian
    • Rail & Quarry
    • Late Victorian
    • Great War
    • WW2 Index
    • Modern
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
Captain Woodgate of Ardgay        Eddie Weeks          December 2017
Picture
Picture
The pictures above (courtesy Eddie Weeks) are of correspondence between the Inland Revenue and Captain Woodgate relating to his Schedule A Tax demand for Ardgay and Ardgay Cottage and land in 1893.
Income Tax
Modern income tax in Britain started in 1803, although a temporary tax had started in 1799 to pay for the wars against Napoleon.
Income was divided into five diferent schedules including Schedule A (income from land and buildings) and Schedule B (income on farming land).

It lapsed for many decades but was reintroduced in 1842 by Prime Minister Robert Peel as part of a general reform of taxation including the Repeal of the Corn Laws and the reduction of hundreds of import duties. Despite many promises to abolish the tax in the 1870s, income tax stayed because it was very efficient at raising revenue at a rate often of 10% for those earning over £150 per annum.
Captain Woodgate's Tax
Captain Woodgate was letting out the cottage on his estate to Laud-Hobbs Bros (unknown) and receiving an annual rent estimated by the commissioners as £135 a year on which he was liable for tax of about 3% (7d in the £). On the field he let out for £15 a year he was liable for tax of about 1% (⅞ of 3½d in the £). And on Ardgay, his private house, he was assessed to rates of about 3¾% (9d in £).

For much of the Victorian period, taxation was to pay for wars and conquest rather than for civil or social responsibilities.
The 1880s was a time of great imperial expansion: Egypt became a British Colony in 1882, Burma in 1885, Kenya in 1886 and Zululand was annexed in 1887. We don't know if Captain Woodgate appealed against the assessment of 1893-94 but, as a military man, he presumably supported the financing of such a rapid imperial development.
Back to Issue 20