Was this unusual?

[Ann from Sussex]

I've just received a will I had sent for (and forgotten about so I had a nasty moment when I pulled out a letter headed HM Courts ....lol). It was written in 1879 and, as well as leaving everything to his wife and making her the sole executrix, he also stipulated that she was to be the guardian of their children who at that date ranged in age from new-born to 15 years. I'm wondering if this was an unusual thing for a man to entrust entirely to his wife in 1879.Any thoughts any-one?

[kiterunner]

I don't think it was unusual at that date, Ann.

[Olde Crone]

I have to disagree with Kate - I think it was quite unusual. I know that my own father made a will when my brother and I were still minors and in that he appointed his brother as our guardian - my mother presumably being too stupid to be entrusted with our care!

I think it would be a rare Victorian male who felt that The Little Woman could be entrusted with the sensible upbringing and guidance of her own children without male input. As children belonged to their fathers, by law, until the 1950s(?) perhaps he was making sure that no one stepped in and ordered his children off to an orphanage?

OC

[Phoenix]

Did he have a lot to leave?

Had he died intestate, I would have thought that the default position would be the estate going to the widow and children. By emphasizing this, isn't he thwarting any strong minded male within the family who might have stepped in?

Although I have seen plenty of wills leaving affairs in the hands of wives (and some which suggested that it was the women who held the reins in the marriage) you often get the instruction "so long as she shall remain a widow"

[Mary from Italy]

I have quite a few wills, but none of them except one appointed a guardian at all, even when the children were minors.

The only exception is an 18th-century will where the testator appointed his mother as guardian of his brother, who was a minor.

[marquette]

I have mostly pre-Victorian wills and I don't think that any appointed guardians for their minor children.

In OH's family there is one man who, in 1889, appointed his eldest son as guardian of his widow and widowed daughter-in-law and her children, and other minor children of his others sons ! Son took the will to court to see if he did have to be responsible (financially as well, I presume) for all of them. The Chief Justice was found that Thomas had written his will himself and without legal advice and did not understand the meaning and form of appointing a guardian, so they were not to be the son's legal responsibility.

[Ann from Sussex]

So the consensus seems to be that it was unusual? That was my feeling and I think it tells something about their relationship and, perhaps, the sort of woman his wife was.

The wife in question was the sister of my 2xgt grandfather and seems to have married quite well, given that her grandfather had been a second-hand dealer and common lodging house keeper in Limehouse just after the Napoleonic War. Her husband was a bank clerk when they married but later just describes himself as a banker on censuses. Whether he was just still a clerk with delusions of grandeur or whether he did become more senior, I don't know although the amount he left points to him being more senior I think. Although the will was made in 1879 he didn't die until 1911 when all the children had grown up and left home. His estate was worth £2114.0.0 which equates to around £732,000 at 2012 values. A lot of money for a mere clerk to have left I think.It's a lot of money, full stop!