The ‘Loss Accounts’ for the English Civil War in the county of Warwickshire are available to search thanks to a volunteer project.

Following the end of the First English Civil War in 1646, the victorious Parliamentarian army ordered the Loss Accounts drawn up to record compensation paid to civilians whose money or property had been taken by Parliamentarian forces.

Warwickshire is one of the counties with the greatest number of surviving Loss Accounts, with 194. They contain the names of hundreds of officers and soldiers as well as thousands of ‘ordinary’ people who received compensation.

In a project created and led by Dr Maureen Harris of the University of Leicester between June 2018 and June 2020, 26 volunteers were trained to read, transcribe and tabulate the documents. The project was supported with a £13,800 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and funding from Friends of the Warwickshire County Record Office and the Dugdale Society.

The transcriptions are available at heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/civilwaraccounts. Researchers can view indexes of the parish names and personal names featured in the accounts, and click to view transcriptions of the documents. The documents include details such as each person’s name and residence and the sum that was paid to them.