The Hearth Tax Research Project was founded in 1996 by Professor Margaret Spufford with the aim of making Restoration Hearth Tax records for every English county and city available, and in 2006 Dr. Andrew Wareham took over as its Director.
Following a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Project has been supported by AHRC, the British Academy, and Marc Fitch Fund in order to publish the records, and to provide historical context and critical apparatus on these records relating to the lives of ordinary people and their households in the late seventeenth century.
Since 2019 the project has made all the data on assessments and returns available via open-access on Hearth Tax Digital, in partnership with the Department of Digital Humanities at the University of Graz (Austria). The Project undertakes “assertive editing” for its digital editions on the records section of Hearth Tax Digital, most recently Andrew Wareham and Steven Hobbs (eds.), Wiltshire 1662 Hearth Tax assessment (Roehampton & Graz: British Academy Hearth Tax Research Project, 2024): introduction and record. The Project also supports events, such as academic and public history conferences and Hearth Tax launches, attracts media coverage and supports hard-copy editions, e.g., Peter Seaman, Adrian Green and Andrew Wareham (eds.), Norfolk Hearth Tax 1672 and Norwich Hearth Tax 1671 (London: British Record Society Hearth Tax series 12, 2024).
Further information of the research, publications and work-in-progress of the Hearth Tax Research Project can be found on the Home and About pages of Hearth Tax Digital, and on its blog: For the Love of the Hearth Tax.