About Oxfordshire Wills Index - The consistory and archdeaconry probate records

The earlier probate records of the consistory and archdeaconry courts are described in the introduction to BRS vol. 85. As stated there there is only one series of registers of wills for the earliest period up to 1650 and it is often difficult to decide whether a particular probate is a consistory or an archidiaconal act. The records are incomplete for the earlier Restoration period, but thereafter there are two separate series of registers of wills for the consistory and archdeaconry courts beginning in 1677 and 1678 respectively, and both continuing to 1857 without any obvious gaps. The earliest grants of administration of goods of persons dying intestate are included in the registers of wills to 1603. For the rest of the period of the earlier index, that is to 1732, there is a single series of administration act books recording grants made by both courts. For the whole period of this index there are two separate series of these act books, for the bishop’s and the archdeacon’s courts, both continuous from 1733 to 1857 (MSS.Wills Oxon. 108-109; 110-112).

The loose wills and administration bonds from which these registers and act books were written up were evidently always filed in four separate series of consistory and archdeaconry wills and bonds, and all four series begin in the sixteenth century. Each series is arranged under the initial letter of the deceased person’s surname and only chronologically within each letter of the alphabet, and those transferred from Somerset House in 1955 (MSS.Wills Oxon. 1-89; 113-177) extend to 1800. The wills and bonds of 1801 to 1857 (MSS.Wills Oxon. 228-288) are continuations of these four classes, arranged in the same way. By contrast with the earlier period when many probate inventories and some administrators’ accounts are filed with these wills and bonds, there are very few other types of document included in any of these four series for the period 1733 to 1800. From 1800 onwards, however, there is usually an affidavit sworn by the executor or administrator with the will or bond. This occasionally gives additional information such as the occupation of the deceased when, unusually, that information is not also found in the will or bond itself. There is only one very small obvious gap in any of these four series of wills and bonds from the 1670’s onwards. There are now no loose archdeaconry wills for persons with surnames beginning with Q for the period 1801 to 1857 although there are copies of six such wills in the registers. A small bundle for Q evidently went astray before the wills reached the Bodleian Library.

In addition to these four main series the loose documents transferred from the Principal Probate Registry include six boxes of miscellaneous probate records of all types for the period 1733 to 1849 (MSS.Wills Oxon. 301-306). These are mainly records of the archdeacon’s court and include renunciations of the office of executor or administrator, commissions to swear executors or administrators, warrants authorising grants of administration, citations requiring relatives to bring wills into court or take out grants of administration, court papers from testamentary causes, and a few unproved wills. Although there are almost no probate inventories later than 1710 in the four main series of wills and bonds this miscellaneous collection also includes inventories of the middle decades of the eighteenth century, from the 1730’s to the 1760’s. There are also similar loose miscellaneous probate documents among Oxford diocesan and archdeaconry records which were evidently overlooked when all the collections mentioned above were transferred to the Principal Probate Registry in 1858. Most of these ‘strays’ among the diocesan records are earlier than 1732; ¹  the few later ones indexed here are mainly inventories, renunciations, and appointments of proxies often to establish a title to property left unadministered for a long time (MSS.Oxf. dioc. papers b.26, c.2087, c.150). Similar archdeaconry ‘strays’ on the other hand are almost all later than 1732, and so all indexed here. These archidiaconal miscellanea were collected together and arranged alphabetically by the name of the deceased person, and then bound up to form twelve volumes soon after the Oxford archdeaconry records were transferred to the Bodleian Library in 1878 (MSS.Archd. papers Oxon. b.28-39). ²  These volumes include many eighteenth century warrants authorising grants of administration, and some examples of each of the other types of probate document mentioned above.

Although there is only the one very small obvious gap in the survival of these consistory and archdeaconry records they are deficient in many ways for the period of 1733 to about 1768, and these deficiencies occur mainly in the records now classed as archidiaconal. There are numerous wills of this period which appear never to have been formally proved; there is no record of probate on either the filed will or in the register, and so only the date of writing of the will can be given here. There are three registers of consistory wills forming a reasonably continuous record of probate in that court from 1733 to 1768 (MSS.Wills Oxon. 95-97). There are in all six registers of archdeaconry wills covering this period (MSS.Wills Oxon. 210-215). All of these overlap in date with each other and in none of them are the wills written throughout in continuous chronological order of probate. One large volume of 534 pages (MS.Wills Oxon. 213) is written in one hand throughout and most of it comprises blocks of wills of varying dates for persons with surnames of the same initial. Thus the first 50 pages contain wills for persons with surnames beginning with G, and pages 149-207, 250-261 contain only wills for persons with surnames beginning with H. Much of MS.Wills Oxon. 211 is similarly arranged but with shorter runs of the same letter of the alphabet and written in more than one hand. Many of the wills with no record of probate are registered in these two volumes. It would seem that some loose wills can only have been collected up and entered in these two registers many years after they were first brought into the registry. In this period, too, there are examples of loose wills surviving which were not registered and of larger numbers registered more than once, sometimes twice in the archdeaconry series of registers, sometimes in both the consistory and archdeaconry series. Similarly there are some administration bonds for persons for whom no grant of administration is recorded in the act books, others for whom grants are recorded twice and some records of grants for persons for whom no bond has survived. All these defects are particularly common in the 1730’s but further examples occur often up to about 1768, but only very rarely indeed before or after this period. New registers of both consistory and archdeaconry wills begin in 1769 and from that date both series are straightforward and complete records of probate in chronological order as they had been before 1733.

Long standing disputes about the limits of the archdeacon’s jurisdiction had led to an inconclusive lawsuit of 1735-37, and it has recently been shown that the two courts continued to compete for business, and therefore, of course, fees, and to question each other’s authority, at least throughout the episcopate of Bishop Thomas Secker (1737-1758). ³  The central point of dispute, whether the annual Easter visitation should be conducted by the Bishop’s chancellor or the archdeacon was only finally resolved in favour of the archdeacon in 1782. It seems very likely that this unsatisfactory record keeping was connected with this competition for business. Herbert Beaver and John Stewart, the lawyers acting as registrars for the two courts and the principal contenders, were both in office for most of this period. Herbert Beaver was the deputy diocesan registrar from 1736 until his death in 1768. ⁴  John Stewart was working for the archdeacon’s court from at least March 1737 until his death in 1762. ⁵  But Stewart’s employer, John Potter, Archdeacon of Oxford from 1741 to 1767, was also the diocesan registrar, having been appointed to that office as a sinecure during the episcopate of his father and namesake, John Potter, Bishop of Oxford from 1717 to 1737. Stewart as Potter’s officer could therefore also act as deputy diocesan registrar, and was actually described as deputy diocesan rather than archidiaconal registrar by the writer of his obituary in Jackson’s Oxford Journal. With this dual role Stewart may have been well placed to divert business and fees to the archdeacon’s court. Beaver writing to Bishop Secker in 1753 about a complaint from Stewart warned the bishop of ‘piratical proceedings’ by ‘persons who are not quite upright in their dealings’. ⁶  The proportions of probate business dealt with by the two courts was certainly changing during this period, more of it now going to the archdeacon’s court. The alphabetical filing of the wills and bonds makes it difficult to compare precisely the quantity of documents which have survived for the two courts for different periods. It was however noted in the introduction to the earlier volumes that over the whole period they cover there are noticeably more documents filed as ‘consistory’ than as ‘archdeaconry’. It is equally noticeable that for the period of this index there are more archdeaconry than consistory documents, and by the end of this period, from 1801 to 1857, there are at least three times as many archdeaconry wills and bonds as consistory.


D.M. Barratt
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