——— ee a 
LIST OF THE INHABITANTS OF MELBOURNE, 1695. 5 
that many clergymen had exposed themselves and their families to 
ruin by not keeping their registers according to law.* It is, there- 
fore, not to be wondered at if these lists of inhabitants were 
generally destroyed as soon as the Taxation Act expired, and the 
few which have been preserved are commonly found in the hands 
of laymen. The list printed below was inherited by Viscount 
Hardinge, amongst his family papers. It bears the signature of 
his ancestor, Robert Hardinge, Esq., of King’s Newton, one of 
the two Justices of the Peace for Derbyshire, who, in pursuance 
of the Act, signed and allowed the assessment for the parish 
of Melbourne in 1695. 
Melbourne is a parish in the southern division of Derbyshire, 
on the confines of Leicestershire, and is bounded on the north 
by the river Trent. It includes the hamlet of King’s Newton, 
which stands on a gentle hill overlooking the Trent valley. The 
Cokes were, in 1695, the principal landowners in Melbourne 3 but 
King’s Newton had been for several generations the patrimony of 
the Hardinge family. Melbourne and King’s Newton contained, 
in 1821, 3,123 inhabitants ; but the whole number, in 1695, was 
660. The aggregate population of England and Wales in 1881, was 
found to be 26,122,000, and, if Melbourne can be taken as a fair 
example of the rate at which the population has increased since 
1695, England and Wales contained, in 1695, 5,526,000 inhabi- 
tants. It is remarkable how nearly this estimate agrees with that 
of Gregory King, who framed his calculations on an entirely 
different basis. According to his reckoning, which is quoted by 
Macaulay, the population, in 1696, was just under five and a 
half milllons. The number of inhabitants in Melbourne at 
different periods is shown in the table below :— 
Number of Number of 
inhabitants. separate households. 
LAUDER Cat) eg aE Tag 07° o a Sa og Igo 
AG Aes sae west had  VATOR oR Ss a. ak ORG 
Riese Ree st BOON oe ie oes aan | BRE 
MRM ee on 2UAR Ge che #, ace toes 597 
Meee? ones eer”. Sa? Ce EL Lo 692 
* 4, Queen Anne, c. 12. 
