Mar. 11. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



215 



LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1854. 

 WHERE ARE THE WILES TO BE DEPOSITED ? 



The difficulties thrown in the way of all literary and 

 historical inquiries, hy the peculiar constitution of the 

 Prerogative Office, Doctors' Commons, have long been 

 a subject of just complaint. An attempt was made by 

 The Camden Society, in 1 848, to procure their re- 

 moval, by a Memorial addressed to the Archbishop 

 of Canterbury, which we now print, because it sets 

 forth, plainly and distinctly, the nature and extent of 

 those difficulties. 



" To the Most Rev. and the Right Hon. The Lord 

 Archbishop of Canterbury. 



" The humble Memorial of the President and Council 

 of the Camden Society, respectfully showeth, 



" That the Camden Society was instituted in the 

 year 1838, for the publication of early historical and 

 literary remains. 



" It has the honour to be patronised by H. R. H. 

 the Prince Albert ; and was supported, from its insti- 

 tution, by the countenance and subscription of your 

 Grace's predecessor in the See of Canterbury. 



" The Society has published forty volumes of works 

 relating to English History, and continues to be ac- 

 tively engaged in researches connected with the same 

 important branch of literature. 



" In the course of its proceedings, the Society has 

 had brought under its notice the manner in which the 

 regulations of the Prerogative Office in Doctors' Com- 

 mons interfere with the accuracy and completeness of 

 works in the preparation of which the Council is now 

 engaged, and with the pursuits and labours of all other 

 historical inquirers ; and they beg leave respectfully to 

 submit to your Grace the results of certain investiga- 

 tions which they have made upon the subject. 



" Besides the original wills deposited in the Office 

 of the Prerogative Court, there is kept in the same 

 repository a long series of register books, containing 

 copies of wills entered chronologically from a.d. 1383 

 to the present time. These registers or books of entry 

 fall practically into two different divisions or classes. 

 The earlier and the latter books contain information 

 suited to the wants of totally different kinds of persons, 

 and applicable to entirely different purposes. Their 

 custody is also of very different importance to the 

 office. The class which is first both in number of 

 books and in importance contains entries of modern 

 wills. These are daily consulted by relatives of tes- 

 tators, by claimants and solicitors, principally for legal 

 purposes, and yield a large revenue to the office in fees 

 paid for searches, inspections, and copies. The second 

 class, which comprises a comparatively small number 

 of volumes, contains entries of ancient wills, dated be- 

 fore the period during which wills are now useful for 

 legal purposes. These are never consulted by lawyers 

 or claimants, nor do they yield any revenue to the 

 office, save an occasional small receipt from the Camden 

 Society, or from some similar body, or private literary 

 inquirer. 



" With respect to the original wills, and the entries 

 of modern wills, your memorialists beg to express 

 clearly that this application is not designed to have any 

 reference to them. Your memorialists confine their 

 remarks exclusively to the books of entries of those 

 ancient wills which have long and unquestionably 

 ceased to be useful for legal purposes. 



" These entries of ancient wills are of the very highest 

 importance to historical inquirers. They abound with 

 illustrations of manners and customs ; they exhibit in 

 the most authentic way the state of religion, the con- 

 dition of the various classes of the people, and of so- 

 ciety in general ; they are invaluable to the lexicogra- 

 pher, the genealogist, the topographer, the biographer, 

 — to historical writers of every order and kind. They 

 constitute the most important depository in existence 

 of exact information relating to events and persons of 

 the period to which they relate. 



" But all this information is unavailable in conse- 

 quence of the regulations of the office in which the 

 wills are kept. All the books of entry, both of ancient 

 and modern wills, are kept together, and can only be 

 consulted in the same department of the same office, in 

 the same manner and subject to precisely the same re- 

 strictions and the same payments. No distinction is 

 made between the fees to be paid by a literary person 

 who wishes to make a few notes from wills, perhaps 

 three or four hundred years old, in order to rectify a 

 fact, a name, a date, or to establish the proper place of 

 a descent in a pedigree, or the exact meaning of a 

 doubtful word, and the fees to be paid by the person 

 who wants a copy of a will proved yesterday as evidence 

 of a right to property perhaps to be established in a 

 court of justice. No extract is allowed to be made, 

 not even of a word or a date, except the names of the 

 executors and the date of the will. Printed statements 

 in historical books, which refer to wills, may not be 

 compared with the wills as entered ; even ancient 

 copies of wills handed down for many generations in 

 the families of the testators, may not be examined with 

 the registered wills without paying the office for 

 making new and entire copies. 



" No such restrictions exclude literary inquirers 

 from the British Museum, where there are papers 

 equally valuable. The Public Record Offices are all 

 open, either gratuitously or upon payment of easy fees. 

 The Secretary of State for the Home Department 

 grants permission of access to Her Majesty's State 

 Paper Office. Your Grace's predecessor gave the 

 Camden Society free access to the registers of wills at 

 Lambeth — documents exactly similar to those at 

 Doctors' Commons. The Prerogative Office is, pro- 

 bably, the only public office in the kingdom which is 

 shut against literary inquirers. 



" The results of such regulations are obvious. The 

 ancient wills at Doctors' Commons not being acces- 

 sible to those to whom alone they are useful, yield 

 scarcely any fees to the office ; historical inquirers are 

 discouraged ; errors remain uncorrected ; statements of 

 facts in historical work's are obliged to be left uncer- 

 tain and incomplete ; the researches of the Camden 

 Society and other similar societies are thwarted; and 

 all historical inquirers regard the condition of the Pre- 

 rogative Office as a great literary grievance. 



