Catalogue description Supplementary Wills Series I

Wills, testamentary schedules, drafts and copies over which some dispute arose, requiring their exhibition in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for a ruling by the judge as to their authenticity.

Most of these records are contentious, generally having been brought into the court for a ruling as to its authenticity, and then rejected by the judge. Many pieces have an endorsement noting a sentence laid in favour or another document, or transferring the cause to the Court of Delegates on appeal, or declaring the deceased to have died, effectively, intestate. A very few items have a memorandum of a grant of probate by the PCC or a lesser jurisdiction, and only in these cases is there a reasonable chance that the document was accepted as authentic by the court. Dates given are those of the writing of the document, not of its introduction into the court.

PROB 20 includes a large number of precautionary wills made by sailors and others embarking on hazardous voyages. They are little more than letters of attorney authorising a named person to dispose of the estate should the traveller fail to return, and many of those for sailors are on printed forms issued by London stationers.

There are also a number of nuncupative wills on the authenticity of which the court was asked to rule. These were sworn statements as to the deceased's last wishes, reported by witnesses and committed to paper in the form of 'memoranda' when no written will had been made. Many of these appear to have been filed at some stage.