Catalogue description Exhibits

Commencing in January 1722 a new system of arranging exhibits was introduced by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury registry. Exhibits were assigned running numbers and kept in bundles by date of exhibition. A new sequence of numbers was begun in January of each year. Each of the exhibits in the bundles was endorsed with its registry number, the name of the testator or intestate to whose estate it related, an identification of the type of document, and the date that it was exhibited. The combination of registry number and date of exhibition constituted the original system of reference for the class. The exhibits were also recorded in the indexes that now comprise PROB 33/2-36. This system for arranging and indexing exhibits continued in use until 1858.

Executors and administrators of estates falling within the jurisdiction of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were usually required to exhibit an inventory within six months of the date of the grant of probate or administration, and an account of their administration and distribution of the estate within one year of the grant. Inventories and executors' and administrators' accounts might also be called for in the course of litigation in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and might be taken by commission. Such litigation was usually initiated by legatees or parties with an interest in the estate who suspected fraud or maladministration on the part of the executor or administrator. It might lead to the production of several inventories and declarations in lieu of inventories.

Inventories relate only to a testator's or intestate's personal estate. They do not include real estate, and this consideration must be taken into account when using them as a means of estimating personal wealth. Inventories vary greatly in the amount of detail they furnish, but some inventory both all the pecuniary credits owed to the deceased, and also the contents of a deceased person's home room by room, listing and valuing all of his or her goods and chattels in detail. Equally inventories of tradesmen and women may inventory the deceased's stock in trade in detail, and thus provide invaluable evidence for various forms of social and economic history.

Inventories of farmers may enumerate crops, livestock, and agricultural equipment. Some inventories yield information of genealogical value. For instance in lists of the deceased's credits there may be references to family members. Declarations in lieu of inventories are documents where the exhibitant declares what part, if any, of the deceased's personal estate is in his or her custody. Accordingly the most informative can be as useful as an inventory. However other declarations are statements that none of the deceased's personal estate is in the custody of the exhibitant, sometimes accompanied by allegations as to who is in possession. Many declarations consist only of a statement that the exhibitant knows of a particular debt due to the deceased, frequently in the form of unpaid wages.