Scheduled Maintenance
Female Servants Tax
There are several different formats used within the Female Servants Tax, the forms have been adapted in later years to accommodate the number of children under fourteen years of age and the further duty imposed.
1. Some Masters/Mistresses have more than one servant, how should these been entered?
Various surveyors have adopted different methods of entering the information. Some have given the name of the servant on separate lines and should be entered as such. Others have entered several servants on one line, these should be entered in the box as written. Where there are a large number of servants to be entered you can check your work by expanding the box, to do this click and drag the bottom right hand corner.
2. There is a place name written in the Date column, should these be entered?
In the burghs especially, actual street names have been entered in the date column and these should be entered as they appear.
3. There are some entries that have two or more servants entered but the duty does not reflect this.
Where there are a number of children in the household that are under fourteen years of age a reduction of tax was introduced in later years. Some of the surveyors entered the total number of servants whilst others omitted the ones not liable. Always transcribe what is written.
4. There is a column on the original for number of children under fourteen but it is not included on the entry form, how should these be entered?
The number of children should be entered alongside the Master/Mistress, because of the variance in the original forms, it is not always possible to accommodate all in one format.
5. There are three columns for Bachelors servants on the original but only one on the entry form, how should these be entered?
Enter the number into the column provided, where the surveyor has separated the totals, separate these with a hyphen.
6. The Master/Mistress is only entered once, do I enter the name against each servant?
If the Mast/Miss has only been entered once then you should do the same, in keeping with the original. However care should be taken if the following lines contain 'Do' or 'Ditto' in which case they should be repeated against each servant, retaining all expansions and brackets if required.
e.g. Rev. Dr. [Reverend Doctor] John Stevenson Min [Minister]
7. The Master/Mistress's Name and Duty are only entered once but there are several servants, how should these be entered.
There are several different versions of this due to the Surveyors interpretation of the records. The Basic rule is wherever there is only one entry of duty this should be entered as a single line and all the servants should all be entered in the Servants/Quality Fields, making sure they line up by expanding the boxes. Where each servant has duty against their individual names they should be entered on a separate line.