Daylight robbery - how the window tax left it's mark on Hampshire (From Daily Echo)

Daylight robbery - how the window tax left it's mark on Hampshire

10:50am Monday 9th January 2012 in Hampshire Heritage By Keith Hamilton, Shipping & Heritage Reporter

IT WAS sheer daylight robbery when Hampshire people were forced to pay a new tax on properties, no matter how big or how small, across the county.

The highly unpopular “Window Tax’’ not only squeezed more revenue out of the population but also charged the appearance of many local communities, which can still be seen today.

Windows were not the only items to be taxed as charges were also imposed on the use of bricks and, even on wallpaper.

Take a stroll around Hampshire’s cities, towns and villages and it is impossible not to notice many blank, bricked up windows, which can be traced back to the 17th century.

One of the most distinctive properties to have undergone a change in its outward appearance due to the tax, stands at the junction of Portland Street and Portland Terrace in Southampton.

This elegant building has a number of bricked up windows, which was the owner’s answer to the authorities demand for more cash.

The term “daylight robbery”

is thought to have originated from the window tax as it was described by some as a “tax on light’’.

However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary the phrase was first recorded in 1949, many years after the “window tax”, which places doubt upon the claim.

However, the phrase originates from at least 1916, when it was mentioned in the play, Hobson’s Choice, as the dictionary records only the first provable written instance of the phrase, so the phrase might have been used in everyday speech beforehand, or even in published writing.

The tax was introduced in England and Wales under the Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money in 1696 during the reign of King William III.

It was designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer, but without the controversy that then surrounded the idea of income tax.

At that time, many people in Britain opposed income tax, on principle, because they believed that the disclosure of personal income represented an unacceptable governmental intrusion into private matters.

In fact, the first permanent British income tax was not introduced until 1842, and the issue remained intensely controversial well into the 20th century.

When the window tax was introduced, it consisted of two parts – a flat-rate house tax of two shillings (10p) per house, equivalent to £11.12 in 2012), and a variable tax for the number of windows above ten in the house.

Properties with between ten and 20 windows paid a total of four shillings (20p), worth £22.25 today.

Those above 20 windows paid eight shillings (40p), now worth £44. The number of windows that incurred tax was changed to seven in 1766 and eight in 1825. The flat-rate tax was changed to a variable rate, dependent on the property value, in 1778.

People who were exempt from paying church or poor rates, for reasons of poverty, were exempt from the window tax.

According to historians, the tax was easy to assess, as the bigger the house, the more windows it was likely to have, and the more tax the occupants would pay.

Nevertheless, the tax was unpopular, because it was seen by some as a tax on “light and air’’.

There was a strong agitation in England for the abolition of the tax during the winter of 1850-1851, and it was repealed on July 24, 1851, and a tax on inhabited houses substituted.

The brick tax was introduced in Great Britain in 1784, during the reign of King George III, to help pay for the wars in the American colonies.

One of the far-reaching effects of the tax was some brick makers went out of business, selling their stock in order to meet tax arrears.

It also had an effect on architecture, with many areas returning to the use of timber in house construction.

The tax was abolished in 1850, by which time it was considered to be holding back industrial development.

The wallpaper tax was first levied in 1712, during the reign of Queen Anne.

Patterned, printed, or painted wallpaper was initially taxed at one penny a square yard, rising to one shilling (5p), now equivalent to £2.84, by 1809.

However property owners were soon evading the tax by purchasing plain paper and then having it hand stencilled.

The tax was abolished in 1836.