STRANGE BUT TRUE

Death and taxes

It was Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) who famously claimed that there were only two certainties in life and they were death and taxes. The English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy, was also notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel by helping to popularise this form of fiction in Britain.

The actual quote is “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believ’d” and comes from The Political History of the Devil which was written in 1726, seven years after the book for which he is most famous, Robinson Crusoe was published.

His death and taxes quote has since been widely used and is often heard in modern times around the world, being a favourite reference by politicians in the United States. It was also probably well known in the early years of the 19th century and therefore familiar to anyone with a smattering of learning, certainly to the Bourne correspondent of the Stamford Mercury when the reporting of parish affairs was still in its infancy and a task often undertaken by the local schoolmaster.

The weekly requirement was reporting anything of interest that had occurred in the town, usually court hearings, inquests and disasters of every kind, their reward being a penny a line and so in those times devoid of hard news it was a challenge of their ingenuity to find something that might be published to earn their crust.

This appears to have been the case for the issue of Friday 29th December 1848, Christmas having passed uneventfully but this failed to deter our correspondent and an evening with pen and paper produced a small gem that reflected the widespread feeling in the town that life in the past twelve months had been far from pleasurable.

The cost of living was soaring, transport was difficult because Bourne was not then part of the railway system and the only public transport being the bus which had been introduced in this country in 1824 and was little more than a horse and cart with several seats, forerunner of the omnibus we know today. On top of that, the annual demands for income tax which had recently been re-introduced in England under the Income Tax Act of 1842 on incomes over £150 a year were about to descend upon the inhabitants of Bourne and if anyone wished to contest the amount claimed then they had to travel to the nearest tax centre at Folkingham which dealt with these matters.

Apparently overwhelmed by this despair, our correspondent was soon in full flight because he wrote:

“Poor Bourne is fast descending to the ‘tomb of all the Capulets’. Isolated from all railway communications, our coaches all taken off the road (the only conveyance remaining being a buss (sic) plying to Stamford and back), tradesmen grumbling, and farmers buttoning up their pockets, from the effect of the present low prices.

“These are evils for which little remedy can be looked for in our present position. We had hoped, however, that the Income Tax Commissioners commiserated our condition; but, alas! We have been deceived even on this point. Until the present week no charges for income had been received, and the inhabitants indulged the hope that the new Surveyor had disfranchised them; but Wednesday brought round the town an official with pockets stuffed with disagreeable papers – charges for Income Tax. Is it not strange that the Commissioners should persist in dragging the inhabitants of Bourne nine miles to appeal?”

This imaginative item by the newspaper correspondent was not penned in vain because as a result, the Commissioners of Taxes yielded to the wishes of the inhabitants by holding an appeal day at Bourne as well as at Folkingham, the first being held at the Bull Inn [now the Burghley Arms] on Friday 16th November 1849.

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