West Yorkshire 1910 Tax Valuation - ancestry

[kiterunner]

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=6066

It shows who owned each property as well as the name of the occupier (owners are often listed with just initials plus surname).

[Janet]

I can see already that this is going to be endlessly fascinating. Thanks very much, Kite.

[Phoenix]

Where does it come from, Kite? Does it show the dates the surveys were actually done and above all, does it link to the maps?

We are lucky in London that we can see the field books at TNA, have access to the more patchy records in the local record offices and see the maps. A friend has the glorious task of helping conserve the maps. Not that I'm jealous.

[kiterunner]

It looks as though each book has the date near the beginning. It doesn't link to maps as far as I can see.
As for where it comes from, it says "Original data: Inland Revenue, Duties on Land Values, 'Domesday Books' Produced Under the Finance Act 1910 for Valuation Offices in West Yorkshire (C243). West Yorkshire Archives Service, West Yorkshire, England."

[Phoenix]

The number on each entry corresponds to a plot of land on the maps. So far as I can tell, the information on owner and tenant is circa April 1910 and I assume came from the Rate Books. However, it could take years before they actually got round to describing each property, so you can have a tenant's name AND the comment "unoccupied"

The books which survive in the Surrey History Centre are, I gather, in an unholy mess and not all the maps survive either, so it would be challenging to work out exactly where some properties were. But where you do have the maps, you can pinpoint precisely where your ancestor was living, and know what the property looked like. I have even been able to work backwards to where some families were in the 1840s, using the maps.