Tax rolls on servants and fireplaces shed new light on history of 17th and 18th century Scottish households

29 August 2012

Historical documents including Scotland’s Servant and Hearth tax rolls dating back some 300 years, go online today.

The records show that in 1785 there were twice as many female servants as male and that Glasgow employed twice the number of female servants than Edinburgh. Female servants worked mostly in towns – as household servants – while male servants were more likely to be found working as butlers, gardeners and coachmen on landed estates.

The servant rolls are among new additions to a treasure trove of historical information held on the 'ScotlandsPlaces' website, www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk, which brings together records from three of Scotland’s national archives: RCAHMS, the National Records of Scotland (NRS) and the National Library of Scotland (NLS).

New free-to-access materials include 25,000 Second and later edition Ordnance Survey maps: 7,486 six-inch maps dated 1892-1960 and 17,466 25-inch maps dated 1892-1949.