Historical background

Wills, letters of administration and other probate records provide an invaluable historical source. It must be realised, however, that for most people neither will nor administration ever existed.

Before 12 January 1858, proving wills and granting letters of administration in England and Wales was the responsibility of ecclesiastical courts each having its own area of jurisdiction.

Which court had jurisdiction in any given case was determined largely by the place of death and the extent and location of the estate of the deceased. Wills were normally proved in the Episcopal consistory court (the diocesan or bishop’s court). If the estate comprised goods in two or more dioceses within the same province, probate was granted in either of the two provincial courts of the Archbishop of York and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of York (PCY) administered the northern province (the northern dioceses of England which included the southern detachment of Flint), while the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury (PCC) covered the southern province (the southern English dioceses and Wales). If the deceased had held goods in both provinces, probate was undertaken by PCC which had over-riding jurisdiction throughout England and Wales.

The right to grant probate was also held by certain church and secular courts called peculiars because they were ‘of peculiar or exempt jurisdiction’ i.e. outside the authority of the archdeacon or bishop. There was only one peculiar in Wales, that of Hawarden, co. Flint, which had jurisdiction in the parish of Hawarden.

Courts having probate jurisdiction in Wales

The pre-1858 probate records deposited in this Library comprise those of the Episcopal consistory courts of St. Asaph, Bangor, St. Davids, and Llandaff, the consistory court of the archdeaconry of Brecon, the peculiar of Hawarden, and the Welsh wills proved at Episcopal consistory court of Chester.

 
There were no ecclesiastical courts in Wales below the diocesan level. In probate matters, the consistory court of the archdeaconry of Brecon, one of the four archdeaconries of the diocese of St. Davids, acted as the diocesan court in a local capacity.

 
The probate records of the diocese, deanery, and peculiar courts of Hereford, together with those of eight of the Salop peculiar courts which were formerly at the National Library, have been transferred to the Hereford Record Office and the Lichfield Record Office, respectively.

 
In tracing a pre-1858 will/administration, the first step is to establish in which court the grant might have been made and where that court’s records are held. Since probate jurisdictions did not always follow county boundaries, this can sometimes prove difficult, especially with regard to parishes bordering England and Wales.

 
Information concerning the probate courts having jurisdiction in Wales, the counties and parishes they covered, and the dates of surviving records is given below or for more detailed information relating to each probate court search for Welsh probate on the Archive Network Wales website. Two indispensable guides to probate records in general are Probate Jurisdictions: Where to look for wills by Jeremy Gibson and Else Churchill (FFHS, 5^th ed., 2002) and Wills and other probate records by Karen Grannum and Nigel Taylor (TNA, 2004). The series of county/parish maps published by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, Northgate, Canterbury, Kent, is very useful for showing the pre-1858 ecclesiastical jurisdictions. These maps, covering Wales, England and Scotland can be consulted in the South Reading Room.

The following is a brief summary of the position in Wales:

Welsh Probate Courts

The records: their nature and scope

The pre-1858 records at this Library cover the whole of Wales except for fifteen border parishes which came within the jurisdiction of the Episcopal consistory court of Hereford, but they include seventeen English parishes which came under Welsh courts.

The main types of probate records are the will, the administration bond and the inventory. Inventories are not common after the 18th century. Associated documents which occasionally accompany the main records include executors’ and administrators’ accounts, and documents such as deposition and bond of tuition and curation.

The original wills and administration bonds generally survive from about 1600 except for Bangor, where very few have survived prior to 1635. There are, however, records in original or copy form dating back to the latter half of the 16th century, but survivals are few. The earliest surviving volumes of register copy wills are for St. Asaph (from 1565) and Brecon (from 1543) both pre-dating the surviving original records. During the Interregnum, the local courts ceased to function, with resultant gaps in the Bangor and St. Asaph records between 1648 and 1660 and in Brecon and Carmarthen (St. Davids diocese) between 1653 and 1660. Despite this, some wills, mainly for Glamorgan, were proved during this period at Llandaff. The records of the court of civil commission which functioned during the Commonwealth are filed at The National Archives with those of PCC.

Probate act books are available for all the courts (except Bangor and Brecon and for the Welsh wills proved at Chester), but surviving series are incomplete.

An index to all the records is now available on the Library website. An Index of the Probate Records of the Bangor Consistory Court, Vol I: Pre-1700 was published by the Library in 1980 and Archdeaconry of Brecon Probate Records, Vol I: Pre-1660 in 1989. Abstracts and indexes, of most of the pre-1858 wills for the consistory courts of Bangor, St. Asaph, Llandaff and St. Davids, and the archdeaconry of Brecon are also available on microfiche prepared by the Genealogical Society of Utah.

The following is a brief summary of the holdings for each court, giving covering dates only. Gaps in the series have not been noted. The complete index is now available to search online through the Library website.

The holdings of the Welsh Probate Courts in the Library