FINANCE ACT 1910 RECORDS - Valuation Books

Items Presented to the Nottinghamshire Archives Office by the Public Record Office, Hayes, under Sec 3(6) of the Public Records Act. 1958, 1979

The Valuation, or Domesday, Books listed here are the main locally held record of the process of the assessment of "duties of land values" under the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910

The land duty clauses of the Act were the culmination of the 1906 Liberal Government's programme of social reform. The act itself did not give a large duty level but did allow for the valuation of land by the Inland Revenue. Resistance by the landed-interest continued, however, and the relevant sections of the 1910 Act were repealed by section 57.1 of the Finance Act, 1920

The Act divided the County into regions, Nottinghamshire being in "the Eastern Region.

The regions were in turn split into districts of which three covered the Nottinghamshire area;

Nottingham, Nottingham County South and Mansfield.

These districts were split into income tax parishes, which were the responsibility of a Land Valuation Officer

The Valuation Books were compiled by this officer who filled in the assessment or hereditament number for each property and the basic details of the property and its owners from the poor rate book of 1909-1910 or the schedule A income tax book (Valuation Book, Columns 2-9). The District Valuation Office filled in the rest of the columns after the completion of the actual valuation of the property in the Field Books (see below)

Other records relating to the Finance (1909-10) Act. 1910

A) Ordnance Survey Sheets

District Valuation Officers also prepared two sets of OS sheets for their area at the largest available scale (1:2500 for most areas except built up areas at 1:500). They show the boundary of each property and its assessment or hereditament number

The first set were 'working copies' and some of these were deposited with the Archives Office in 1967

B) Field Books

These are the fullest record of the assessment process and were completed by the District

Valuation Office with details of the valuation itself. They are organised by assessment number.

These records are held at the Public Record Office, Kew under reference IR/58

C) 'Form 37'

These forms were the provisional valuation forms sent to the owners of properties and returned to the District Valuation Offices. These were passed to the Archives Office in 1980. They have, however, been destroyed as they contain no extra information and cover a lesser area than surviving Valuation and Field Books

For more information about the Finance (1909-10) Act 1910 and the records it produced see: Brian Short and Mick Reed, Landownership and Society in Edwardian England and Wales etc (University of Sussex 1987)