| Description | From 1797 until the Spring account of 1808 the estates lay in Aston, Weston, Shardlow, Great Wilne, Draycott, Little Wilne, Sawley, Long Eaton, Breaston, Risley, Wilsthorpe and Hopwell in Derbyshire and Halstead in Leicestershire.
From Autumn account 1808, Draycott, Breaston, Risley, Wilsthorpe and Hopwell disappear from the accounts.
The accounts are half-yearly, Spring and Autumn. Each account opens with a rental, sub-divided by parish or township, giving tenants' names, rents due, received and in arrears. In the accounts for Autumn 1803 and Spring 1804 an additional column gives land tax levied. From the Autumn 1804 account the accounts give income tax (later called property tax) deducted, until Spring 1809 when it disappears, and land tax redeemed. The latter is not shown for the prebendal lands, held leasehold by Holden.
The rental is followed by "The Discharge", which consists mostly of payments, but includes some receipts such as total of rents. Normally the Discharge is sub-divided into "Sawley" payments [ie relating to prebendal lands] until and including the Spring account 1808, and general payments. The Sawley payments consist of salary for curate, gratuity for schoolmaster (until the Autumn 1804 account) tithe payments, rent to Prebendary and, in the Autumn only, payment to Divinity lecturer and wages to sacrist. The General payments, until Autumn 1799, cover all payments, other than the Sawley payments, but from Autumn 1799 until Autumn 1808, they cover only Mrs Clarke's jointure, accountant's salary, court expenses with the addition from October 1804, of the "allowance" of tenants' income or property tax.
From Autumn 1799, until Autumn 1808, when it disappears, there is a contingent account, covering payments made in the period since the last account, but which are not included in the discharge. From Autumn 1808, however, there is only an undifferentiated discharge which covers all payments made (but the Sawley payments ceased altogether after the Spring account 1808).
The payments in the discharge before Autumn 1799 and from Autumn 1808, and in the contingent account between these dates, not only include the items noted in the preceding paragraphs, but also some personal and domestic payments, some relating to gardening, repairs to churches, the Provisional Cavalry and the Volunteers, water works, Aston plaster pits and a railway for the plaster pits.
See below for details.
The accounts were "allowed" and signed by Murphy and Holden. |