National Probate Calendar for 1859

[carol8353]

As we know from Heir Hunters today,so many people do not make a will,expecting that the money will just go to family automatically.It isn't always that simple 

I expect the same thing happened back then too.

Carol

[helvissa]

It does seem a bit odd.... By 1861, his widow is a "fund holder" and in 1871 an annuitant. She died in 1887 and I haven't turned up anything in the probate calendar for her either.

I just wonder if someone filed his stuff under "Clements" rather than "Clement"!

Yeah, that's true! Clearly some money did end up transferred to his wife, though.

[FosseWay]

Even if someone died intestate, they should appear in the Probate Calendar when their letters of administration go through. I'd have thought this would be especially true of someone of some substance as this chap seems to be. I've found a relative of mine in the NPC who didn't leave a will but did have letters of administration granted, and his estate was all of £3 6s!

Most of the time in my experience the people most likely not to feature in the NPC are (a) the very poor, with no estate to leave, (b) people who died before the age of 21, (c) married women before the Married Women's Property Act (1881, I think), and (d) people who had no assets in England and Wales. That's not to say there weren't glitches in the system, though, or people whose deaths and wills were dealt with without officialdom knowing about it. Again, I'd be surprised if the latter applied in this case, especially since his death was obviously registered.

[helvissa]

I have to say, I didn't realise that they still appear in the probate if they died intestate. Good to know!

Hmmm... this is very strange indeed! Bell's Life in London carried on in the family, apparently. This shows the ownership of the paper - from 1852 (when their father Wm Innell Clement died) to 1883 (the last Clement brother died in 1884), the paper was owned by "the Clement brothers" (Wm Innell's sons):
http://www.victorianperiodicals.com/series3/showarticlespecial.asp?id=99192

William jnr's sons Thomas & William are newspaper proprietors on the 1881 census, and from what's been said from personal memory, it was probably Bell's Life in London that they part-owned; presumably controlling their late father's interest, I would imagine, under the "Clement brothers" ownership (with their father's brothers - their male cousins were only newspaper clerks, so didn't own the papers unlike Thomas & William). By 1891, Thomas is a wine merchant, the Clements lost/sold it when it was taken over by ('absorbed') by Sporting Life in 1886.

I'd hoped William 2nd's will might show a bit more! Oh well.....

There's a note on Wm Innell's will - something happened in 1857, 5 years after his death, but the scan isn't clear enough to read it properly. From other evidence, I think it's to do with the sale of The Observer. It looks to me like they sold it because it never made much money and had to be propped up by the government, whereas Bell's was quite popular and presumably made money for them. I was thinking there were other titles the Clements owned, but I haven't been able to find out, other than the ones Wm Innell owned.

I'm just horrendously nosey, to be quite honest.

[FosseWay]

I have to say, I didn't realise that they still appear in the probate if they died intestate. Good to know!

I don't know whether they all do. I've certainly found numerous people who didn't make wills in there, but that doesn't mean everybody with something to leave is included. In particular I've found references to servicemen who died in WW1 very young without having made wills -- these are often useful records as well because they can give more precise places of death than the Commonwealth War Graves Commission often has (it will tell you where they're buried, rather than where they died).

On the subject of the NPC, does anyone know why it stops at 1943? (It is 1943, even though Ancestry doesn't have 1942/3 yet, as I remember getting the details of my great grandmother's probate out of the microfiche version at the FRC, and she died in 1943.) Was there a change in system at that point, or is it a privacy thing and later years will become available when it's deemed suitable?

[helvissa]

Ah... there might be one of those here as William's nephew was in the army and died in Barbados aged 23.

I thought it migth be a privacy issue as well, regarding the available dates.

[helvissa]

This suddenly gets very interesting....

I saw someone look up something in the London Gazette. I didn't realise you could do this, and so what do I find?

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/22279/pages/2498

I find:

"PURSUANT to an Order of the High Court of Chancery,
made in the matter of the estate of William
Clement, late of Rosherville, in the parish of Northfleet,
in the county of Kent, Esquire, deceased, and in a cause
between William Charles Clement and Thomas Samuel
Clement, plaintiffs, against Charlotte Augusta Clement
defendant, the creditors of William Clement, formerly of
Eastland House, Dulwich, in the county of Surrey, then of
Cavendish-villa, Ramsgate, in the county of Kent, and late
of Rosherville, aforesaid, who died on or about the 6th day
of February, 1859, are, by their Solicitors, on or before
the 26th day of July, 1859, to come in and prove their
debts at the chambers of the Vice-Chancellor Sir John
Stuart, No. 12, Old-square, Lincoln's-inn, Middlesex, or in
default thereof they will be peremptorily excluded from the
benefit of the said Order. Tuesday, the 2nd day of
August, 1859, at twelve o'clock at noon, at the said chambers,
is appointed for hearing and adjudicating upon the
claims.—Dated this 21st day of June, 1859."

This is William's sons William and Thomas, going to court against their stepmother, Charlotte Augusta, née Ehn.

I'm not entirely sure what this means - but at the mention of creditors, does this mean that William died in debt?

Is there some way of finding out the outcome? I've looked and there's no further mention of it in the London Gazette.

Edit to add: this is Chancery, I think, having googled the name of this fella: Vice-Chancellor Sir John Stuart. Google books have got some Chancery cases - they have Clement v Maddick when William's brothers took some publishers to court. But nothing on the case here.

[helvissa]

This is rather nifty... I've just found Thomas Clement again:

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/22979/pages/3015

Although not to do with his father's business.

[helvissa]

I'm very thick... I didn't realise I could get the online version of the historical Observer and Guardian where I work. I've found some interesting stuff, but alas, I haven't found anything else about this court business.