A Measure of Wealth: The English Land Tax in Historical Analysis

John Kendle is a history professor at St. John’s College, University
of Manitoba.

Land tax duplicates are both invaluable documents and notoriously
treacherous to use. In this meticulously argued and detailed study,
Donald Ginter has striven to provide a primer for all who might wish to
use the land tax as the basis of a historical and/or an economic study.
His analysis is confined to the years 1780 to 1832, a period he knows
well and for which documentation is rich.

After a brief introduction, Ginter divides his book into three main
sections. Part 2 (“Interpreting the Structure of the Land Tax
Duplicates”) explores minor problems such as nominal record linkage,
titles, and quotas; major problems such as the unit of analysis,
tenurial status, residence, occupancy, and whether or not all properties
are included; and, finally, Roman Catholic double assessment and the
conversion of tax value to acres. Part 3 examines the valuation basis of
the land tax within townships, while Part 4 deals with the regional and
national distribution of the land tax burden. In his extensive
conclusion, the author provides a tightly argued assessment of the
historiography of land tax studies.

Historians and economists will be especially indebted to Ginter for
this fine and lucid scholarship.