About Oxfordshire Wills Index - The compilation of the index

When the Oxfordshire probate records first became available to searchers in the Bodleian Library in the late 1950’s some parts of the collection were much more accessible than others. The records had come with two detailed, beautifully written and very accurate indexes of names compiled by Ernest Cheyne in the Principal Probate Registry. His index of all the consistory and archdeaconry records to 1732 completed in 1902 was the basis of the index of that period already published and is described in that publication. His index of all the probate records of all the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire peculiars referred to above is of very similar format. It is undated but was evidently completed later than 1902. The only records for the peculiars not included in that index were the loose wills and bonds of 1801 to 1857 housed in the Oxford District Probate Registry, not at Somerset House. All the loose consistory and archdeaconry documents to 1800 and all those for the peculiars were numbered quite soon after the collections came to the Bodleian and those Bodleian reference numbers added to these Cheyne indexes. Details of the loose wills and bonds of 1801 to 1857 with their references were also added to Cheyne’s peculiars index. All this, which made the Cheyne indexes even more valuable finding aids, was mainly the very careful work of Miss Maude Wheeler.

By contrast for many years the only means of access to most of the later consistory and archdeaconry records, those of 1733 to 1857, was two volumes compiled in the Principal Probate Registry probably in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. These listed wills and administrations from the registers and act books volume by volume in two separate alphabetical sequences according to the initial letter of the deceased person’s surname. One volume covered the consistory records of 1700 to 1858, the other the archdeaconry records of 1766 to 1857. Archdeaconry wills and administrations of 1733 to 1765, the area of confused record keeping mentioned above, were only covered by a badly worn volume written in a quite difficult legal hand of about 1800 listing the contents of the registers and of an act book in the same way as these later indexes. There were no lists of any of the loose documents later than 1732. The need for a single complete index of the later registered and loose consistory and archdeaconry wills and administrations was always obvious but it was some twenty years after the records came to the Bodleian that work on it began. At that time the ultimate aim of producing, and perhaps eventually publishing, the present cumulative index which would include all the probate records of all the peculiars began to take shape. It has now taken another twenty years to achieve that aim.

In November 1976 the Bodleian Library was offered the services of six Radley College sixth formers for a fortnight and those boys began the task of writing index slips for loose archdeaconry wills of 1733 to 1765 to replace the most inadequate of all the indexes then available. An appeal was made for volunteers to continue the work, and a very large proportion of the slips on which this index is based were eventually written by two of those who responded to that appeal, the late Leslie Wood and Dr. Jean Andrews. After he retired from his post as Secretary to the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council in 1979 until he died after a short illness in March 1984 Leslie Wood was to be found in the Bodleian Library with a box of wills almost every weekday writing and checking and re-checking slips. He completed the slip index of names for all the consistory and archdeaconry records of 1733 to 1800 and compiled another for all the peculiars (constantly checking his own work against that of Cheyne), and he compiled very useful indexes of places and occupations referring back to the names index. He also made a particular study of the wills of Dorchester peculiar and published an interesting article based on them. ²⁵  Meanwhile in her retirement Dr. Jean Andrews was writing slips with equal care and enthusiasm for the consistory and archdeaconry wills and bonds of 1801 to 1857 and she completed the work on this section after the records were transferred to the County Record Office in 1984, with some help from the Record Office staff. The two indexes of names were amalgamated in the Record Office and references to all the miscellaneous additional loose documents described above were eventually added to the index by the Office staff, most of them relating to persons already recorded there. Much of this latter task was the work of Mark Priddey and in particular he indexed the whole of the twelve volumes of archdeaconry ‘strays’, the largest collection of miscellanea needing to be incorporated.

The completed index now comprised many boxes of loose slips and the need to convert this to at least a typescript to which searchers could safely and conveniently be allowed direct access became pressing. It also however became obvious that the hard-pressed staff of Oxfordshire Record Office would never be able to achieve this as part of their regular work. At this point, in 1990, Joan Howard-Drake volunteered to edit and type the slips if she could work at home. A few at a time, letter by letter, the boxes were withdrawn from Oxfordshire Record Office and replaced in the search room by a first draft of the present text. Joan Howard-Drake has been a very exceptionally careful editor and accurate typist, with an eagle eye for possible errors or omissions in the slips. It was usually she who noticed when two slips might refer to different documents concerning the same person. Mark Priddey and I have proof read the whole text, and we have looked again at many of the original documents often to settle queries she first raised. We are all three sure that users will still find errors, but we hope they will be few and if they are it is largely due to the meticulous work of Joan Howard-Drake.


D.M. Barratt
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