Catalogue description Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Administration Act Books

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Details of PROB 6
Reference: PROB 6
Title: Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Administration Act Books
Description:

This series contains administration act books of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) and related jurisdictions from 1559 to the abolition of the court in 1858. They are the PCC's own records of the letters of administration issued under the seal of the court. Letters of administration were issued to persons who had a claim on the estates of intestates to enable them to administer and distribute the estates.

Most acts are recorded in summary form, stating the date of the grant, the name and place of residence on the intestate, and the name of the administrator and his or her relationship to the intestate. Administration grants limited to a particular part of an intestate's estate are entered in full.

The act books are in Latin up to 1650 and from 1660 until early 1733. From 1651 to 1660 and after 25 March 1733, the act books are in English, although certain technical phrases and abbreviations continued to be in Latin.

As a result of the civil war and the abolition of the episcopacy during the mid seventeenth century probate jurisdiction was subject to considerable disruption and this disruption is reflected in the surviving administration act books for the mid seventeenth century.

After 1809, limited and special grants of administration ceased to be recorded in the main administration act books in PROB 6. Instead they were recorded in a separate sequence of act books which is now series PROB 7. The term entered at length alongside the name of an intestate in an administration act book for the years 1810 to 1858 (PROB 6/186-233) is a cross reference to the relevant act book in PROB 7.

References to later grants of administration on the same estates were added to the administration act books after the abolition of the PCC in 1858.

Date: 1559-1858
Arrangement:

Arranged in chronological order. From 1646 onwards, there is usually one volume per year.

From 1660 to 1718 (PROB 6/36-94), the volumes are organised into monthly sections and then subdivided into different seats.

The basis of this organisation is not known. From 1719, a system of five seats (or walks) was in place. Each volume is arranged by seat, usually but not always in the following order:

1. Registrar, covering:

  • Testators or intestates dying overseas or at sea. (In cases where the grant was made to a man's widow, and she lived in an area within the jurisdiction of one of the other seats, probate or administration was granted at that seat.)
  • Testators or intestates living outside the Province of Canterbury, including in Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Westmorland, Yorkshire, Ireland and Scotland.
  • Estates which were, might be, or had been subject to litigation within the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. (However, if a second grant of probate or administration was made it would be passed at the seat which have been responsible had there been no litigation.)

2. Surrey, covering: Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire.

3. Welsh, covering: Berkshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Wales.

4. Middlesex, covering: Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, (excluding parishes listed under London), Norfolk and Suffolk.

5. London, covering the City of London and the following parishes and areas nearby: Charterhouse, Furnivall's Inn, Glasshouse Yard, Gray's Inn, Holy Trinity Minories, Liberty of the Rolls, Liberty of the Tower of London, Lincoln's Inn, Old Artillery Ground, Precinct of Norton Folgate, Precinct of St Katherine by the Tower, Precinct of the Savoy, St Andrew Holborn, St Anne Soho, St Botolph Aldersgate, St Botolph without Aldergate, St George Bloomsbury, St George the Martyr (Queen Square), St Giles Cripplegate, St Giles in the Fields, St James Clerkenwell, St James Westminster, St John Clerkenwell, St John the Evangelist Westminster, St John Wapping, St Leonard Shoreditch, St Luke Old Street, St Margaret Westminster, St Mary Le Strand, St Mary Matfelon Whitechapel, St Sepulchre.

Except for the Registrar's seat, the sections of the volume are headed with the name of the clerk.

Some of the published indexes supply folio numbers. These relate to handwritten numbers in the volumes, and not to the stamped numbers.

Related material:

For original indexes to wills and administration grants, see PROB 12

Related records on the disposal of estates can be found in TS 17
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English and Latin
Physical description: 234 volume(s)
Access conditions: Available in microform only
Immediate source of acquisition:

In 1970 Supreme Court of Judicature
Custodial history: After the abolition of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in 1858, the administration act books were transferred to the custody of the registry of the Court of Probate, and then, in 1874, to the Principal Probate Registry of the High Court of Justice.
Publication note:

A name index to the administration act books for the years 1581-1650 was published by the British Record Society as Index to Administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (6 volumes, 1944-1986).
Unpublished finding aids:

Various name indexes to portions of this series are available in the reading rooms at The National Archives, Kew. The indexes are not uniform and may not always be comprehensive.

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