Felsham in 1674 during the reign of Charles II

The Suffolk Hearth tax returns provides us with a list of some of the people who lived in Felsham in 1674.

"National taxation records are of particular value to historians, providing rare snapshots of both the extent and distribution of wealth and population across an entire country. The Hearth Tax of the 1660s and 1670s provides one such detailed picture of the socio-economic and demographic structure of England and Wales. In addition, the information on hearths sheds invaluable light on vernacular architecture and on developments in building during the later seventeenth century."
http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Research-Centres/Centre-for-Hearth-Tax-Research/

The Hearth Tax was introduced in England and Wales by the government of Charles II in 1662 at a time of serious fiscal emergency. The original Act of Parliament was revised in 1663 and 1664 and collection continued until the tax was finally repealed by William and Mary in 1689.

Under the terms of the grant, each liable householder was to pay one shilling for each hearth within their property for each collection of the tax. The tax was payable by people whose house was worth more than 20s a year and who contributed to local church and poor rates. Large numbers of people were exempt from paying the tax. Those individuals who were not liable to pay for reasons of poverty were required to obtain a certificate of exemption from the parish clergyman, churchwardens and overseers of the poor, countersigned by two Justices of the Peace. As a result, the hearth tax assessments cannot be considered to provide anything approaching a comprehensive census of the population.

Payments were due twice annually, at Michaelmas (29 September) and Lady Day (25 March), starting at Michaelmas 1662. However, the administration of the tax was extremely complex and assessment and collection methods changed radically over time. As a result, the majority of the surviving documents relate to the periods when the tax was administered directly by royal officials, who returned their records to the Exchequer, namely the periods 1662-1666 and 1669-1674.

Outside these periods, the collection of the tax was ‘farmed out’ to private tax collectors, who paid a fixed sum to the government in return for the privilege of collecting the tax. These farmers were not required to send their assessments into the Exchequer, although a few returns from these periods do survive. (Source: M, Durrant, History of Badley).

FELSHAM HEARTH TAX RETURNS 1674

John Fryar	4
John Motham	4
William Deekes	5
John Groom/Widow Spurgeon	3
John Spurgeon	6
William Scare	4
Mr [Thomas ] Brundish [the Rector 1646-1680]	4
Anthony Hayward	3
James Hayward	4
Thomas Warren	4
Mr Nunn [Also owned a house in Gedding with 4 hearths]	5
Robert South	7
Mr Robert Goodrich	5
Dan. Mount/Richard Kemball	3
John Banham	5
John Hayward	6
John Sterne	5
Charles Sterne	5
George Cockseage	4
Widow Worth/ George Partridge	3
William Grimwood/ Thomas Todd	3
Hezekiah Draper	3
Jos Ranson	3
John Ely	4
Total hearths	99
CERTIFIED for.
Robert Groome/Anthony Groome/John Groome	3
Widow Alexander/Edward Hawkins	3
Augustus Heylder/James Mayhew	2
John Hamont sen. & jun.	2
John Grimwood/William Lockwood	2
Towne houses	3
Exemptions	15

With the number of hearths averaging about 4, the people of Felsham were mostly living in farmhouses and cottages.  There is no large house listed.  The Lord of the Manor in 1674 was John Risby Esq. who lived in Thorpe Morieux in a house with 11 hearths.

To help put these village statistics in some sort of perspective it is worth noting that the house with the largest number of hearths in Suffolk was Hengrave Hall with 55, while more locally we have Rushbrook Hall with 33.

Mr Robert Goodrich is, perhaps, the most interesting person among the list of Felsham  tax payers.  Certainly, we know more about him than some of the others.  To begin with he is buried in the centre of the chancel of St Peter's Church and the flagstone that marks his grave bears his impressive coat of arms:

He died in 1731 at the age of 80 years.  Furthermore, a “Robert Goodrich” was a High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1727 and the Felsham gentleman may have been the same person.
(The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown and is appointed annually (in March) by the Crown. He was originally the principal law enforcement officer in the county and presided at the Assizes and other important county meetings.)

Sir John Tilley in his “Notes for a history of Felsham” (1951) mentions that in 1718 Mr. Robert Goodrich, Senior, bestowed upon the Church a silver flagon bearing his arms; its "first appearance”, says the register was on Easter Day. It is still in use and, so the Rector tells me, is German work and very valuable."

The earliest mention of the Goodrich family in Felsham was in 1470 in the Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury.  The record includes the will of "Rose Goddrych of Felsham, widow", dated 2nd August 1470.

For more general information about "hearth taxes" see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearth_tax