Assigning an inheritance in England
Patricia-Ann Lee Land Grant 25, Skidmore College Digital Collections
Transcription and Translation (E. Jones, R. Pepin, J. White)
Much like today, seventeenth-century wills documented the distribution of someone’s possessions after their death. This Last Will and Testament of Sir George Wentworth, dated 6 July 1655, identifies the inheritance he gives his three younger children.
Sir George asks his executors – his wife, Dame Anne Wentworth, his friend William Chadwill, and his great-nephew Sir George Savile — to selll his share of Pockocke Farm, near Sarre, Kent, within three years of his death and to distribute the funds to his sons William and Ruishe (Ruishee) on their 21st birthdays and to his daughter Elizabeth on her 18th birthday or marriage, whichever comes first. He also sets aside funds to buy ‘black,’ or mourning, clothes.
A shorter document, a codicil, amends the will one year later. Attached to the front of the will, the codicil adds ‘beloved friend’ Francis Colley as an executor to replace Anne Wentworth and Chadwell, who both had died. It also increases each child’s inheritance by 500 pounds.
