Cannot read a Will dated 1785

[Hackstaple]

This is the Last Will and Testament of Richard Sutton of Eatonbridge in the county of Kent, Yeoman, made, published and declared this 28th Day of July in the year of our Lord, 1785.
First my will is that all such debts as I shall justly owe to any person or persons at the time of my decease shall be truly and honorably paid and discharged and subject thereto and to the payment thereof I give and dispose of whole Estate both real and personal in teh following manner that is to say I give and devise all that my messuage or tenement wherein I now dwell and their outhouse, buildings, yard, Barkside gardens and appurtenances thereinto belonging or appertaining with one piece or parcel of land thereunto near to and adjoining and now in my tenure or occupation & containing by estimation one acre and a quarter.....

Goes on. Mostly standard lawyerese. Prue is dead right - the writing is very good and clear. Just persevere. The curse of the computer age is that people seldom see real adult hand writing any more.

[GR2]

........... and therewith by me now used occupied or enjoyed together with one piece or parcel of Land thereunto near adjoining and now in my own Tenure or occupation containing by estimation one acre and a quarter be the same more or less situate lying and being in Etonbridge aforesaid in the said County of Kent and all other my Messuages Saids Tenements and Hereditaments and parts and shares of Messuages Lands Tenements and Hereditaments and real Estate whatsoever and wheresoever which I have power to dispose of whether in possession reversion remainder or expectancy unto my Daughter Harriet Sutton her heirs and assigns for ever ..........

[GR2]

.......... also all and every my Ready Money Securities for Money debts Goods chattels and personal Estate whatsoever I give and bequeath unto my said Daughter Harriet Sutton her Executors Administrators and Assigns to and for her and their own use and benefit and I do hereby give and dispose of the custody and Tuition of my said Daughter Harriet Sutton for and during such time as she shall remain under the age of twenty one years unto my Brother Thomas Sutton of Penshurst in the said County of Kent yeoman John Humphry of Hever Castle in the parish of Hever in the said county yeoman and Thomas Shorey of Chiddingstone in the said County of Kent yeoman and to the


Graham

[Annie65115]

To the OP - I was completely boggled the first time I saw a will with this style of handwriting; like you, I found it almost unintelligible.

However, this is the predominant style of handwriting for wills of this era (and for many years later!) and once you "get your eye in", it's actually reasonably easy to read. You also get used to recognising certain terms and phrases that seem archaic but were commonplace n those days ("messuages and tenements" being one of the most common).

Try reading the transcripts alongside the original to get the practice and hopefully it will become much easier for you.

[Redroger]

The Latin part at the end of the will probably starts with the word Probatim. This means that probate was granted, Latin probates are all so similar that I have posted a generic version of this site under the title Typical Latin Probate. Why not look it up?

[Redworth]

To PruM, Hackstaple, GR2, Annie and Redroger.

Thank you all so much for your help and advice. 

I had managed with great difficulty to read about half the first page but had no idea what some of the words were.  However, I was trying to read from the very poor quality photocopy of the origional document which I downloaded from the GRO. 

In future I must be able to convert these pdf files into a more readable form such as PruM has very kindly done for me, which makes for much clearer reading.

Ray

[PrueM]

Hi Ray

All I did was open the PDF in a graphics program (in this case it was just "Preview" on my Mac), crop out everything except for this small section and then convert it to a jpg for viewing online.  I haven't fiddled with the appearance of it at all...when you open it in your PDF viewer you should be able to zoom in on it which will help - they're very small if you view the whole page at once.