COUNCIL FOR 1885-86. THE WORSHIPFUL RICHARD COPLEY CHRISTIE, M.A., Chancellor of the Diocese of Manchester, Glenwood, Virginia Water, Staines, PResident. THE REV. THE HON. GEORGE THOMAS ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN, M.A., Honorary Canon of Liverpool, The Hall, Wigan, VICE-PRESIDENT. HIS HONOUR HENRY FOX BRISTOWE, Q.C., Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster, The Cliffe, Nantwich, VICE-PRESIDENT. JAMES CROSTON, F.S.A., Upton Hall, Prestbury, Cheshire, Vice-President. LIEUT.-COL. HENRY FISHWICK, F.S.A., The Heights, Rochdale, VICE PRESIDENT. WILLIAM ALEXANDER ABRAM, 42, Adelaide Terrace, Blackburn. JOHN EGLINGTON BAILEY, F.S.A., Egerton Villa, Stretford, near Manchester. GEORGE E. COKAYNE, Ṁ.A., F.S.A., Norroy King of Arms, Herald's College, London, E. C. HENRY HOYLE HOWORTH, F.S.A., Bentcliffe, Eccles, near Manchester. THOMAS HUGHES, F.S.A., The Groves, Chester. THE REV. JOSEPH HEATON STANNING, M.A., The Vicarage, Leigh, Lancashire. JOHN PAUL RYLANDS, F.S.A., Heather Lea, Claughton, Birkenhead, HON. TREASURER. JOHN PARSONS EARWAKER, M.A., F.S.A., Pensarn, Abergele, North Wales, and 108, Portland Street, Manchester, HON. SEcretary. PUBLIC LIBRARY 204937 ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUT DATIONS. R 1001 L. MANCHESTER: A. IRELAND AND CO., PRINTERS, INTRODUCTION. HE tenth volume of the Society's publications contains a list of the Lancashire Wills preserved in Somerset House, London, and proved at Richmond from A.D. 1457 to 1680. The present volume brings the list down to the year 1748, the latest date of the wills, which were removed from Richmond to London in 1874 (see Introduction to List of Lancashire Wills, 1457 to 1680). The wills of the five western deaneries of the Archdeaconry of Richmond from 1749 to 1857 are now at the Probate Office in Lancaster. When the Probate Act of 1857 came into force, wills ceased to be proved at Lancaster. It may be well to repeat (see Introduction to vol. i.) that the deaneries and hundreds are not exactly coextensive; for example, Ribchester and Chipping are in the hundred of Blackburn and the deanery of Amounderness. The wills enumerated in the present volume are for the most part written on paper, and are tied up in bundles arranged under the deaneries in alphabetical order, and although some of them have suffered from damp and neglect, they are in better condition than the older ones. The original indexes are written in separate volumes for each of the deaneries, but in this and the preceding volume the whole of the wills are arranged in strict alphabetical order, irrespective of the deanery in which the testator died. This arrangement will be found of advantage to the genealogical student, and it furnishes many striking examples of the way in which families lingered in the district from which they derived their name. Thus, out of one hundred and fifty testators of the name of Fell, the whole of them, except ten, lived in the Furness deanery; the families whose names end in "thwaite" are mostly found in Kendal or Furness. The Swarbrecks are all in Amounderness, and the Tathams in Lonsdale. For permission to print this list the Society is indebted to Sir James Hannen, President of the Probate Division of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice; and I must acknowledge my personal indebtedness to G. H. Rodman, Esq., of the Principal Probate Registry, for much valuable assistance, THE HEIGHTS, ROCHDALE. HENRY FISHWICK. |