Will question

[ElizabethHerts]

I have found these entries in the Probate Calendar for my great-uncle:

1937
ALEXANDER Herbert Porrit of Glencairn 331 Barlow Moor-road Manchester 21 died 21 May 1937 at the Royal Infirmary Manchester 13 Administration (with Will) Manchester 28 June to Mary Ellen Alexander widow. Effects £2100 0s 5d.

1938
ALEXANDER Herbert Porrit of Glencairn 331 Barlow Moor-road Manchester 21 died 21 May 1937 at the Royal Infirmary Manchester 13 Administration (with Will) Manchester 2 June to Tom Tomkinson Estate Agents Clerk. Effects £600.
Former grant D.R. Manchester 28 June 1937.

What significance does this have for the widow? Is this to mean that subsequently a will was found? As far as the family is aware, this couple was childless, so who was Tom Tomkinson?

[kiterunner]

Administration with will would mean that they had already found the will but there was no executor named in it, or the executor named was unable to act as such. It looks as though Mary Ellen was appointed administrator in 1937 and she dealt with most of the estate but in 1938 Tom Tomkinson was appointed to administer what was left, maybe because Mary Ellen was now unable to.

[ElizabethHerts]

Thanks, Kate. I was thinking along those lines. I suppose Tom Tomkinson was a trusted family friend. Mary Ellen didn't die until 1948.

[Uncle John]

I have an admon with will from the 1870s. I think the will may have been defective in some minor respect but satisfied the court as to the testator's intentions.