1828 City Valuation - a COVID -19 project

In 1828 there was a revaluation of Lincoln for rating purposes. A printed list was produced naming proprietors and occupiers along with a short description of each property. This has been used to produce maps showing the different characters of the different parts of the city. We have also investigated who the principal proprietors were.

How the project started

Early in 2020, Dennis Mills suggested that the website might display a series of extracts from a JS Padley map of Lincoln, with the boundaries of the assessment districts used in 1828 for a revaluation of properties. Dennis, Rob Wheeler, Beryl George and Geoff Tann met in early March and considered how to present both the boundaries and the valuation returns online.

One outcome of this meeting was a decision to embark upon digitising the printed valuation returns, producing a list which could be easily accessed online, searched and sorted. We recognised that the many names of individuals and other information contained in the valuation would be of use to historians, archaeologists and family history research.

We started the process of digitisation a few days before Government restrictions on movement and socialising were introduced, each taking one parish and working as our commitments and mental stamina allowed. Chris Gilham and John Herridge joined the team.

Those restrictions were instrumental in hastening a process that we had originally expected to take several months. By the date of his death, Dennis had been able to see the early progress on his project; by April 2020 the full return (over 3000 entries) had been digitised.

The combination of mapped boundaries and searchable returns helped Rob Wheeler analyse the material, producing lists of precincts with the highest rated properties and 'an estate agent's map' of the city areas by mean rateable value.

There is potential for much more consideration of this material.