| Description | Transcripts of wills of Mrs Mary Bowrey (1715) and Mrs Prisca Coborn (1701) and memoranda concerning Prisca Coborn's and other charities, 1726-1733.
Transcript of the will of Mrs Mary Bowrey of Marine, Square, Stepney, widow of Captain Thomas Bowrey, made 28th April 1715:
Requests burial in the churchyard at Lee, Kent and that £200 be spent on a fitting memorial. Makes bequests to the following:
(a) her friend Mrs.Hannah Lockard (£5 and a gold ring)
(b) her mother Frances Gardiner (her inn in Southwark called old King Harry's Head, plus her farm in Chapton Magna, Essex, occupied by John Westbrowne for £32 p.a., the farm to pass after Mrs Gardiner's death to Mary Bowrey's cousin Elizabeth, wife of Joseph Garbutt, and then to Joseph Garbutt junior)
(c) her cousin Thomas Studds (£300 and a gold ring)
(d) her cousin Hannah, wife of John Taylor (£50)
(e) her cousin Rachel, wife of Francis Tubby (£40, and another £40 to their 4 children)
(f) Mrs.Elizabeth Searle, wife of Andrew Searle of Ducke Lane near Epping, Essex (£20 and a gold ring)
(g) Mrs.Anne swanley of Mile End Green (£10 and a gold ring)
(h) Elizabeth Jones of wapping, widow (£5 and gold rings for her and her daughter Mary Jones)
(i) Blizabeth Herningould (£5)
(j) Ann Dobson (£5)
(k) her servant Joseph Noden (£20)
She also leaves £100 to be distributed among 'poor decayed seamen or seamen 's widows especially those 'as have used
the East India Trade or Navigation and their Widows, my said Dearly Beloved Husband having got or improved his Fortune in the world by that Trade.'
Directs her stock in the South Sea Company and her houses in Goodmans Fields to be sold and the money used to pay the above legacies; interest from the residue to be paid to her mother during her lifetime. After her death, Captain Hugh
Raymond and John Hungerford of Lincoln's Inn, whom she appoints her trustees, to purchase land between Stepney
Church and Bow, to build almshouses for poor men and women the sea and past (the men 'such as have been bred up
to their labour', the women widows Of seamen).
Appoints her mother as her executrix.
Witnesses: Charles Moore, Edward Page, Thomas Reed and Ann Dobson.
The will was proved on June 1715; an additional note explains that Mrs Gardiner died c.January 1721, and that
an Information Bill was later filed against Hugh Raymond in the Court of Chancery to establish the charity
specified in Mary Bowrey' will. 8 almshouses were subsequently built (to house one inmate each. nominated by the members of Ratcliff, Poplar and Blackwall and Mile End Old Town, and Bethnal Green, and by the Parishes of St-George-in-the-East, Christ Church [Spitalfields] and St.Anne [Limehouse]).
A schedule of title deeds held by Gilbert Slater in 1769, and an abstract of title to property held by Richard Cooper in Bromley-by-Bow parish, 1682-1742, is appended.
Transcript of the will of Mrs Prisca Coborn of Bow, widow, made 6 May 1701.
Requests burial in Bow Church, near her parents, with 30 ministers of the Church of England, 60 poor women f Bow,
and 20 poor women of Bromley being invited to the funeral.
Refers to her 'brewhouse trade', and leaves money for the plastering of the ceiling in Bow Church.
Makes bequests to the following:
(a) Revd. Thomas White, minister of Bow Church (£20, plus 5 guineas to preach her funeral sermon, plus £20 p.a.
to preach 4sermons each year, on Good Friday, Ascension Day, St.Bartholomew's Day (24 August, being my birth-day') and 30th January) - the money to be derived from her property in Stratford Langthorn and her farm in Bocking, Essex, occupied by Joseph Eades)
(b) Joseph Hartwell 'my bread clerk' (£100)
(c) James Hurt 'my house clerk' (£20)
(d) her servant Thomas Hobbins (£100) [NB. codicil changes this to £5 plus £l0 p.a., and notes that his Christian
name is Samuel not Thomas]
(e) her servants William Noble, Henry Newman and Samuel Drake (£50 each)
(f) her servants John Norris, John Rye, Thomas Spencer, Thomas Fisher, Philip Higginbottom, John Nuns and
John Broadstock (£20 each)
(g) her nurse Ann Beesooth (£10 plus £20 p.a.)
(h) Nicholas Best, Ann Moseley and Sarah Noble (£5 each)
(i) Isaac Taylor, 'formerly my clerk' (£30)
(j) Widow Huntingford (£20)
(k) Ann, wife of Robert Hardesty, her 'best set of tapestry hangings, chairs and looking glass, and the furniture of
my dining room'
(l) Elizabeth Maud, widow (£10 p.a.)
(m) Saxton Gunston, hop merchant (40s p.a.)
(n) Robert Hardesty of the Middle Temple, her executor and trustee (her messuage, coach-house and stables in Bow,
occupied by Penelope Colchester, widow)
(o) the poor of Bow (£20,plus f20 p-a)
She also leaves various properties in trust to Robert Hardesty for charitable purposes, as follows:
(i) Property in Bow, Stratford Langthorn and Bocking, to support a schoolteacher to instruct poor children at Bow (maximum 50), to be paid £50 p.a. [refers to the school already erected at Bow by Sir John Jolles, under the supervision of the Drapers Company]
(ii) Bocking Hall (occupied by Simon Mazey), property in Bocking (occupied by Thomas Ruggles, George Laver, and Henry Laver) and a mill and lands in Bocking occupied by Francis Smith), all mortgaged to Mrs.Coborn by Sir william Barker, to found charity for the poor widows and children of Church of England clergyman.
(iii) Farm and lands in Layer Marly and Wigborough, Essex, (occupied by Widow Oddy and Benjamin Handler), to found
a charity for poor incurables at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
(iv) The manor of Coville Hall, and lands at White Rooding, Essex (occupied by Richard Bankes, yeoman), to found a
charity for poor seamen 's widows of Stepney parish.
Witnesses: John Dawson, Anthony Cracherode and Thomas Stayner.
Codicil of 13 September 1701 exludes her servants Edward Clark and William Ridgell from any general legacies to her servants.
Miscellaneous notes:
(i) Note of 1726 regarding the transfer of annuities (from the legacies of Mrs Dorothy Smith and Mr Nicholas Unductsch 'purchased by Major Riner's executors') to william Whittle Johnson, J.E.Nettlefold, Benjamin Granger and William Gandy as trustees for Stepney parish.
(ii) Notes in Latin and English regarding a case of 1732 before the Master of the Rolls, concerning Prisca Coborn's charity for poor seamen's widows. Dispute is over the new parishes (carved out of St Dunstan's, Stepney) of St George-in-the-East, Christ Church (Spitalfields) and St.Anne (Limehouse); the plaintiffs include Dorothy Bradshaw of St.George-in-the-East, Elizabeth Judwine [?] of Spitalfields, and Margaret Bowman of Limehouse, all poor widows
of seamen. The deaths of Prisca Cobarn on 13 November 1701 and of Robert Hardesty on 18 April 1727 are mentioned.
The Master of the Rolls' decision is that poor seamen's widows of the new parishes should not 3 be debarred from benefitting from this charity. A copy report of 4 August 1733 follows, outlining how the charity is to be fairly administered
in future.
Book plate inside front cover for James Henley, stationer and bookseller of Broad Street, Ratcliff Cross. 'for use by the Hamlet of Poplar and Blackwall.' |