excise man.....

[derekfrom france]

bonjour
i have a relation thomas ellis born devon he moved to scotland his occ was excise man does there exist a list of this profession he moved to
aberdeenshire
sante derek

[Russell]

Hi Derek

Not sure what you mean by a list of this profession?

Robert Burns was an excise man at one point in his life (i.e. before he made money and wowed the moneyed classes with his poetry)

At one point whiskey was made in small stills all over the country but the king had to raise money and introduced a tax on whisky production and sale. To ensure he gathered in as much of this tax from a reluctant population as possible the government employed the excise men to ride around the country to find out where the illicit stills were and make the owner cough up the cash. They would destroy the still too.
I doubt they were popular in their neighbourhood

Even today Customs & Excise monitor every stage of the distillation, casking, storage and bottling of whisky to ensure that full tax is paid.
If they could find a way to tax the 'angels share' I'm sure they would.

Lovely stuff though

Russell

[JustJean]

Bonjour Derek

In all my experience Excise can only mean one thing.....TAXES!

There is a description from the Scotlands People website of occupations and excise man is listed there:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/conte ... ?r=551&984

Best wishes
Jean

[LesleyB]

Hi Derek
Looks like the National Archives may hold some records:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/fami ... ustoms.htm
Depends when he moved to Scotland:

There were separate Customs Boards for Scotland from 1707 to 1823 and Ireland from 1807 to 1823, when a United Kingdom board was established. Some records for these periods can therefore be found at the National Archives of Scotland, the National Archives of Ireland and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

Best wishes
Lesley

[emanday]

If they could find a way to tax the 'angels share' I'm sure they would

They wouldn't dare