This page follows on from my article – Howarth v Taylor – A Complicated Matter.
Annie Howarth (plaintiff) was just 1 in approximately 150 of the beneficiaries entitled to John Taylor’s estate. In 1911 an application for ‘Permission to dispense with service of the notice’, for parties who were resident abroad was granted. This number totalled around thirty people and concerned descendants as far away as India and Brazil who hadn’t acknowledged the notice served.
To understand how the chancery court action impacted the descendants I thought it worth shining a light on the actual people present and involved in the court action at the time. The newspapers speak in terms of numbers, but who were these relatives.
The will had been the subject of High Court proceedings as well as in the Palatine Chancery Court, and the effect of the decisions was that the fund, amounting to between £3,000 and £4,000, was divisible in thirds, only three of the seven children of the testator having left issue. One of these had 100 descendants, another 43, and the third only six. Unfortunately, about half of the beneficiaries were infants, and about 75 separate accounts of comparatively small sums would have to be carried over. Eighteen or 20 of them were also residents abroad. His Honour made an order for the taxation of costs and payment of duties, and the distribution of the fund to persons entitled, the shares of the infants to be carried to separate accounts.
Henry Taylor (debtor and later, a yeoman farmer) accounts for the 100 descendants, Alice Taylor who married William Wright representing the 43 descendants and Mary Taylor, widow of Robert Moss Esq and later married to Henry Taylor of Longton Hall had 6 descendants.
It would take an age to go through each of Henry’s descendants to pinpoint who was around at the time and where they were, however, from research I have already done into my family tree a few relatives immediately came to mind.
There was my great-grandfather Thomas who was in his early twenties and living in Canada at the time along with his sister Helena. Another of their sisters, Minnie, was in India with her military husband. Their father, John, had passed away the same year as the court ruling in 1912.
I know from earlier research that John had travelled to England in 1911. I can’t help but wonder whether this court case may have played a part in his reason for the visit.
There was also John’s four sisters: Dinah Bond, a widowed publican of the Oak Tree, Brinscall; Elizabeth Bond of the Sea View; Mary Pass of the Old Millstone Inn, Whittle le Woods; and Hannah Marsden, a long-standing landlady who had retired by the time of the court action, with her son William taking over the most recent family business at the Derby Arms on Eaves Lane, Chorley.
Another relative present at this time was my great-grandfathers entrepreneurial cousin George from my narrative Innovative Ancestors. Also, Mary Dinah Taylor, from my post Female Ancestors – Spinsters.
Records also mention the presence of relatives in Brazil and the USA connected with the case.
Who these other relatives abroad were I am at this time unsure, but I’m sure over time and with further research these relatives can be discovered.
To Conclude,
I would encourage anyone else researching into their family tree to look at the wills and probate as well as tithes and land records, where unknown family details could be waiting!
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