My GG-grandfather left his estate to be divided equally between his wife and four of his five children, but only left to his eldest son, my great-grandfather Arthur Inman:
"the sum of Ten pounds providing he stay at home and be a good help to his mother till he is twenty one years of age but all things to be as my wife thinks best".
I knew Arthur had been in trouble with the law, so I assumed relations with his father weren't too good. Then I found a cutting, dating from 1878, when he was 19, about his theft of a piece of meat from the market (he was actually a butcher, like his father).
A police sergeant said in court that he'd seen his father, who told him that "his son (the prisoner) was the very worst lad he knew of. He had been at sea on board a fishing-smack but had absconded, and they would not take him back on any consideration".
The will was made a month before the court case.
No idea whether Arthur's mother ever gave him his small legacy; he does appear to have lived at home till he was 21, then married his girlfriend, a month after their baby was born. His father died 3 months later, and the baby a week after his father. After two more babies were born and died in infancy, Arthur and his wife emigrated to Australia.
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