Norfolk. [Piece title:] Auditor Phelips's papers relating to the collection of the...

Norfolk. [Piece title:] Auditor Phelips's papers relating to the collection of the hearth tax in Norfolk. (Described at item level).

[Piece description:] These documents are nearly all auditor's papers, extracted from the E 179 miscellanea which occupies pieces E 179/354-361. They are the papers of Exchequer auditor John Phelips, and relate to the county of Norfolk, one of the counties in his division or circuit.

For the purposes of auditing the hearth tax, England and Wales were divided into seven circuits. John Phelips was one of seven Exchequer auditors, each of whom had an office probably in one of the London Inns of Court, with a sworn deputy and a staff of clerks. His division or circuit consisted of London, Middlesex, Westminster and the Inns of Court, Hertfordshire, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and the city of Norwich, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. The documents in this piece relate to the county of Norfolk and its county town, the city of Norwich.

These documents, spanning 1662 to 1673, were drawn up to analyse the returns and particulars of account submitted to the Exchequer by the sheriffs and receivers of the hearth tax, and were preparatory to the final result of each collection or group of collections, the declared accounts, which are in the series E 360. Documents in this piece which are not strictly auditor's papers are item 3 (return for Loddon hundred, 1666) and item 7 (commission appointing Augustine Briggs receiver, 1670).