Although the tax of 1783 was much less formidable than its war-time predecessor of many years before, any new tax is unpopular and a stupid one especially so. While this one lasted, only six Ash christenings seem to have escaped; two were of illegitimate children and another of the child of a traveller. It was no doubt with relief that the rector was later able to add the words: ‘Tax abolished 1794’.
   In the meantime, Mr Lambard had carried out major revisions in the forms of the Baptismal and Burial registers and in consequence these become, from 1790, veritable mines of information. The revised forms continued in use, substantially unchanged, until 1812. In the case of baptisms, headings were provided for the date, the child’s name, the parents’ names, the father’ s ‘profession’, the date of the child’s birth, the mother’s maiden name and the place of marriage. During the first ten years during which these headings were in use, one hundred and fifty-four children were christened. True to 

average, they included one pair of twins. Save for ten born out of wedlock, they were the children of seventy-one couples, of whom nine had been married at Ash and forty-six in parishes not more than ten miles away. Three couples had been married further afield in Kent, nine in London or its environs, two in Essex and two in Sussex. Rather surprisingly, Thomas Stoneham, a husbandman, had been married at St George’s, Hanover Square, as also, more explicably, had Joseph Burgess, a servant.
   Excepting one who later branched out on his own account, forty-five of the fathers were labourers. There were nine farmers, William Hodsoll, John Middleton, James Dengate, Charles Whitehead, John Elcomb, Thomas Deane, Edward Oliver, Richard Rogers and John Thorpe, four husbandmen, Michael Fletcher, Thomas Jeal, Stephen Ashenden and the Thomas Stoneham above mentioned, three