View Full Version : I cannot understand this will.
I'm having trouble with a will.
The will Zoe kindly transcribed for me was fairly straight forward. Elizabeth Naylor (nee Eyre) was a widow with one living child, Elizabeth (wife of Myles Ariel).
Elizabeth Naylor leaves a couple of people some money, then leaves a fair bit of money in stocks, etc to her grandchildren, either when they attain 21 or when the marry.
She then leaves all her real estate to her daughter for the term of her natural life, then after her death, to the grandchildren.
Could that stand up in court???? OR.... would Elziabeth Ariel then be able to do what she wanted with it in her will??
This is in 1830.
Then in 1837....Elizabeth Ariel dies, leaving everything to her husband, Myles for his natural life, then after his death, to their children.
BUT..
On the end of Elizabeth Ariel's will is this....
On the 1st of June 1839 Admon, with the will annexed of the Goods, Chattels and Credits of Elizabeth Ariel, wife of Myles Ariel, late of the city of Bristol deceased was granted to Robert Leonard and Edward Jarrett Ransford the Executors having been first sworn by Canon duly to administer. The said Myles Ariel the lawful husband of the said deceased and as such the only person entitled to her personal estate over which she had us disposing power and concerning which she is dead intestate having first consented as by Acts of Courts appears.
Now.....Elizabeth Ariel died 1837 (I have the cert). Her widower, Myles remarries in Feb 1839, so he's married again by the above date.
Could it be that married women weren't entitled to leave wills??? Everything mentioned in the will was given to Elziabeth by her mother or father independent of any current or future husband.
Any ideas???
Don't have expertise in this area....but I understood that the property of women passed, on marriage, to their husbands, unless it was tied up in some manner in the marriage settlements.
They must have been able to leave property, as I have one of my Goulds, a considerable heiress, who married into the aristocracy twice, survived both husbands and had no children. She left all her wealth to a Gould cousin on her death in 1757.
MargaretMarch
13-09-09, 08:10
Strikes me that she was entitled to leave a will of what to do with her money but for some reason she was adjudged to have died intestate. So I would presume that Myles contested the terms of the will and won the day by having it effectively 'annulled'.
I'm not a legal expert but that's how I read it, especially if the money then went down his line rather than where Elizabeth said it should go after his death.
Margaret
Thanks Bev and Margaret.
I can only come to the conclusion that Myles' new wife, Lucretia, wanted the will contested.
Myles was a wealthy man in his own right and Lucretia's family seemed well off.
Myles was dead less than a year after in 1840 and the children got nothing that I know of. I do know Myles' daughter in law tried to get some of the money in the late 1880s after Lucretia died.
I just can't work out how a court could stop the children getting the money that their grandmother had left them if their mother died????
kiterunner
13-09-09, 10:02
She then leaves all her real estate to her daughter for the term of her natural life, then after her death, to the grandchildren.
Could that stand up in court???? OR.... would Elziabeth Ariel then be able to do what she wanted with it in her will??
I've seen that kind of bequest in a lot of wills, so I'm sure that was a standard kind of thing.
I wonder why Elizabeth Ariel was declared intestate then??
MargaretMarch
13-09-09, 10:23
Might be interesting to see if you could find the case records. They may be in the National Archives if there was a law suit.
Margaret
kiterunner
13-09-09, 10:30
It was Elizabeth's "personal estate" for which she was declared intestate, though, not her "real estate". Would you like to email the will etc to me and I'll see if I can work out what was going on?
Thanks KiteRunner. Thanks to Zoe, I could email both.
I'm afarid I don't seem to get the gist of the legal jargin.
Margaret...............that's a good idea. I have searched for other "Ariel" documents and never found anything to do with this, but another look wouldn't hurt.
Email sent.................watch this space!!! LOL.
kiterunner
13-09-09, 11:23
This might take a while! Firstly, I see that Elizabeth Naylor's will was proved in 1830 but Elizabeth Ariel's will was written in 1823 so it didn't take account of anything she was left by her mother. I don't think her will would need to mention the real estate that her mother left her because of the fact that the mother's will only left her a lifetime use of it and then left it to the grandchildren. But the beginning of Elizabeth Ariel's will says it is "pursuant to the power and authority or several powers and authorities contained in the indenture or deed of Settlement made and executed on or previous to my intermarriage with my said husband the said Myles Ariel." And we don't know what the settlement said (I don't suppose you have a copy of it?) which doesn't help.
How old were Elizabeth Ariel's children when she died, and were any of them married?
kiterunner
13-09-09, 11:32
You might like to have a look at a book on Google book search called "The law of succession: testamentary and intestate By William Searle Holdsworth, C. W. Vickers".
Thanks................The Ariel children were all under 21 at the time their mother died and none had married.
I wonder if the marriage licence would have the "settlement"??
I'll have a look at the book.
kiterunner
13-09-09, 11:42
I don't think the marriage licence would have the settlement. It was a private document and would be kept by the parties involved or their solicitors, and not very many settlement documents have survived. Also it could have been drawn up after the licence. I would love to see my 2xg-grandparents' settlement! It's mentioned in my 2xg-grandfather's will but as far as I know it hasn't survived.
So if all the Ariel children were under 21 and unmarried, they weren't entitled to inherit anything yet but it had to be held in trust for them according to both of those wills.
Got to go and have dinner now...
Olde Crone
13-09-09, 11:46
Surely this just concerns her PERSONAL Estate, i.e. her own money, her own jewellery etc.
The entailments of her mother's Will are nothing to do with her personal estate.
I wonder if the Executors were protecting the children's interests? If Myles was a bit of a spendaholic, he might be flogging his late wife's jewellery etc, and they stepped in to stop him. Just a thought.
At that time, married women could only make a legal Will with the permission of their husband. However, there were many legal safeguards in place to protect a married woman's assets, such as show here - her mother left HER money to her grandchildren.
My family were a crafty lot and anything left to married daughters was always entailed in such a way that hubby couldn't get his hands on it.
OC
Thanks again.
Enjoy your dinner......I'm off to bed soon.
I'm fairly sure the only son who made it to 21 didn't receive anything. His father, Myles Ariel's will leaves 5000 pounds to each of his children on the death of his new wife. he died in 1840 (only a few months after his 1st wife's will fiasco), but his second wife didn't die for another 40 years. By then only one child survived.
Hi OC.................
The trustees were the same for both wills and for the husband's will.
The only difference was one extra solicitor for Elizabeth Ariel's will a Mr Thomas CLARK.
I'm presuming he is a rellie of Lucretia Clark (by now Mrs Myles Ariel) and Edward Clark, husband od one missing Agatha..............lol
Why is it everytime I try to sort this lot I find Clarks?????
Myles should have had enough of his own money, but then he could have been a gambler, drunk, etc. He seemed to be a good Baptist if that makes any difference...lol
Myles and/or his new wife may have been greedy plain and simple.
If only people left a detailed explanation of why they did things, life would be a lot easier.
Aw...Toni. I'm starting to hate this Clark lot even if they are completely innocent of anything, thay annoy me..........lol
I'm off to my bed....catch up in the morning~~~
samesizedfeet
13-09-09, 12:42
I may be remembering incorrectly as I"m at work and don't have my transcription but I seem to remember what was left to ELizabeth was to be held in trust and then passed to the children. So she would never technically own any of it the "trust" would on behalf of her and her children.
kiterunner
13-09-09, 13:17
The real estate and £2200 was left in trust to Elizabeth for her use and then to her children, but the "rest, residue and remainder" was left to Elizabeth absolutely, and we don't know how much was included in that. But anyway, Elizabeth jr's will was written before she inherited anything from her mother, and was to do with her personal estate from her marriage settlement.
Uncle John
13-09-09, 19:24
How very "Pride and Prejudice" this is.
LOL................UJ.
The property left to Elizabeth Ariel was some land in two different places in Yorkshire. Some was left to Elizabeth Naylor in her husband's will, and I presume some left to her from her family. I wish I could find them.
The property included
"all my messuage situated at Wakefield in the County of York together with all my several Closes and Parts or Parcels of land situated at Cleckheaton in the said County of York together with the respective appurteneures to the said messuage and land"
The 2200 pounds was given to the trustees to invest (as I understand) and Elizabeth Ariel get the yearly dividend upon receipt of a note signed by her from time to time
"for her sole and seperate use for her life independent of any husband or husbands and to the intent that the smae or any part thereof may not be liable to the debts or control of any husband or husbands in any manner whatsoever"
Beats me!!!! lol
Olde Crone
13-09-09, 21:33
Libby
Yeah, her mum was on to him and his shenanigans, lol!
OC
Not sure that it did him any favours, OC.................he was dead a couple of months after he got the lot in the will.....and Lucretia pocketed a tidy fortune.
How long after a death can you have an autopsy?????
Is 170 years too long???
kiterunner
13-09-09, 21:53
That was just the standard wording used in wills for any bequest to a woman, it didn't mean they had anything against that particular husband.
That was just the standard wording used in wills for any bequest to a woman, it didn't mean they had anything against that particular husband.
Yes, but this is the Ariels :rolleyes: and a woman called Lucretia (Lucrezia??!!!) lol I expect she poisoned Myles for his money!
Oh Merry.............I'm so glad I'm not the only one...lol
Do you think "apoplexy" covers a few things?????????
Olde Crone
13-09-09, 22:44
It isn't the standard wording in most of my Wills, Kate.
I have one Will where the woman names 35 beneficiaries, from memory five of them married daughters.
She only puts that wording in for ONE married daughter and I surmised from that, that he was a known useless article.
OC
kiterunner
14-09-09, 07:26
I've seen it loads of times in wills, OC.
Uncle John
14-09-09, 10:22
I've seen it loads of times in wills, OC.
Perhaps your women were cautious with their money or not good at choosing husbands.:(:(
kiterunner
14-09-09, 12:47
Another Google book search result that might make useful reading:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_YEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PT792&lpg=PT792&dq=debts+%22controul%22+husband&source=bl&ots=8sCJp2kgdq&sig=RLcq0JDBZVE_LjvQLQA8i3TfzjM&hl=en&ei=ojauStubCtqrjAeg7PDqBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Anyone want to have another look at this???
Like......if anyone is really bored or needs a headache or such... lol
I should let it go, but it annoys me, not only that it happened, but how it happened.
I have searched for news reports, etc., but nothing stands out. I do know sometimes other countries get different results with Google, so please feel free to go for it.
kiterunner
13-05-15, 22:12
What is it that you're still trying to find out, Libby?
I'm mostly trying to find why it was overturned. I suppose that is one of those 'how long is a piece of string' questions, but thought there may be some new releases of newspapers online that might have a story.
Now that we know Elizabeth's tree, it was obviously a lot of inheritance from her mother, Elizabeth Naylor (nee Eyre).
kiterunner
14-05-15, 07:45
I don't see that it was overturned? Robert Leonard and Edward Jarrett Ransford are the people who she named as executors and trustees in her will.
By the way, the bit that you transcribed as "her personal estate over which she had us disposing power" should be "no disposing power". I can't remember whether this was mentioned before.
No....I don't think that has been mentioned before. So....would that mean she couldn't will it to her children?
But...her mother willed it to them once their mother died anyway.
I had another look online yesterday and couldn't see anything pertaining to the will. Lots of news stories about another will in the family so they did print those stories.
Ah well, maybe it is meant to be a mystery...
I'm not sure about the word "overturned" It was decided Elizabeth died intestate.....which was odd wording as well as she was married at the time.
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