C 631813-1854Chancery: Memorial Rolls of Annuities
These rolls contain abstracts of deeds granting annuities or rent charges, that is legally binding payments made annually from one party to another, the rent charges drawing on income from real estate.
The documents include the following information: the date of the instrument creating the annuity; the nature of the instrument; the names of the parties; the names of the witnesses and their 'description'; the names of persons receiving the benefit of the annuity; names of persons for whose lives the annuity is granted; the 'consideration' (that is, the capital invested) and how paid; and the amount of the annuity.
Many of the annuities, themselves so often in effect a penalty for debt to be redeemed by spreading the payment of it year by year, entail additional penalties, in the form of securities exacted from the parties making the grants. The crudest is the 'bond in penalty', which stipulates a sum to be paid by the guarantor if he fails to pay the annuity.