Did Your Ancestors Have Extra Cash?
Thoughts on The Bank of England Will Extracts
By Sherry Irvine, MSC CG FSA Scot
Money
Money is a standard by which value is measured. In England, coinage has been around a long time, at least since the 8th century when the silver penny appeared.
In my experience, genealogists do not give much thought to cash in the pockets of their ancestors, yet it is relevant to consider the part played by money in their lives. Economic activity at all levels of society was more complex than most of us imagine. Historians can demonstrate that credit was widely used in large and small amounts, and you can discover this for yourself in wills and probate inventories.
Labourers barely got by and were in desperate circumstances when illness struck, or if the harvest was poor. They had little or no cash on hand. Those somewhat better off; merchants, tradesmen, and farmers, sometimes accumulated extra money and put it to work. People used cash surpluses to make loans to their neighbours and for investments.
At the British Origins site there is a finding aid to a set of records that tells something about the savings of thousands of people - the Bank of England Will Extracts.
About the Records
The Bank of England was founded in 1694 and took over the funded debt of the nation about 20 years later. Consequently it was the issuer of bonds and stocks of the government and of the bank itself. It needed to record ownership and to track changes due to sale or inheritance. The details were copied into ledger books and, where a will explained the disposition of a Bank of England asset, that clause of the will was copied into the bank's records. The extracts begin in 1717 and go on until 1845. In 1985 all the volumes were given to the Society of Genealogists. You can read more about the background to the Extracts within the Research area of this website.
All sorts of people; servants, lords, sailors, wealthy merchants, widows and children, possessed stocks and bonds and thus were recorded in the Bank of England Will Extracts. They lived all over the British Isles and overseas. The index to the extracts provides essential information: name, occupation or situation of the deceased, place of residence, date and reference code. The extract itself, which can be ordered at the site gives all the details of the investments and names the people involved, the beneficiaries and executors.
In addition, each extract names the court where probate was granted, a valuable factor for the first 95 years. It is an important point because before 1812 probate, whether a will or an administration, may have been handled by the PCC or by one of the other church courts. There are finding aids to a significant amount of lower court probate material but mostly in county arrangements. This index is to all England and, with the extracts, may be a shortcut to a local probate record.
From 1812 to the end of the extracts in 1845 the Bank of England required that probate be at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). There is an index to all PCC wills at the National Archives web site, but it does not include administrations.
Conclusion
There are three good reasons for checking the index and the extracts. The first one is scope - 140 years, all sorts of people from England and beyond, and across the levels of probate courts, wills and administrations. Secondly, a search here backs up a search in PCC records; no matter how much care is taken with preparation most indexes have errors and to know that you can effectively search a portion of PCC records in another finding aid is useful. The third reason is for background; the extract provides details of Bank of England holdings. One person in my family left to her nephew - "one half of my property in the Long Annuities" - and without the extract I had no idea what that meant.
Beyond direct genealogical value, turning to the Bank of England Will Extracts leads to consideration of how money came into the lives of your ancestors. Perhaps they emerge in a new light, whether rich, poor, spenders or hoarders. Not only may you be led on into probate records, but into further research in their work and social setting.