Excerpt from Lancashire and Cheshire Wills and Inventories, 1572 to 1696, Now Preserved at Chester: With an Appendix of Lancashire and Cheshire Wills and Inventories, Proved at York or Richmond, 1542 to 1649

HE Wills and Inventories printed in this volume have been selected from those now preserved in the Probate Registry at Chester, and are mostly of persons of the middle class, instead of, as is too often the case, those of persons of rank and position only. Amongst them will be found the wills of yeomen, husbandmen, chapmen, and Clothiers, together with those of several clergymen, one doctor of physio, two freemasons, and various gentry. Out of the fifty-one wills here printed only three are those of persons styled esquires, whilst one is that of a knight, and two others are members of the family of Viscount Kilmorey. They afford insight, therefore, into the life of the middle class during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and as such will be found to contain much of general as well as local interest. They are mostly full abstracts of the original wills, devoid of all the legal verbiage and re petitions, but retaining every name of person or place, and all expressions which are in any way quaint or curious. Some few of the wills, however, have been printed in full in order to show how the others have been abbreviated. In an Appendix will be found a number of Lancashire and Cheshire Wills and Inventories proved either at[n trodufiz'on.

York or Richmond, between the years 1542 and 1650. These are mostly short genealogical abstracts of the originals, and were found by me amongst the late Canon raines' Miscellaneous mss. And papers, which I have recently arranged and calendared for the Chetham Library. They would appear to have been mostly made by the Rev. Canon james raine of York, who was in constant communication with the late Canon raines, and who probably sent him abstracts of any important Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories which he met with in the course of his searches at the Probate Courts of York and Richmond. These wills will be found of much local interest, and will show how often it has happened that wills, which one would expect to have been proved at Chester, have, for some reason or other, been proved at York, and are there preserved. The Lancashire wills are mostly from the North of Lancashire, but a few are from South Lancashire, and some from Cheshire. A few wills relating to Westmore land have also been printed, as the southern portlon of that county formed part of the old diocese of Chester. The total number of the York and Richmond Wills of which abstracts are here given is 108.

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