Inventory of John Reeve/Reve, grocer, 1619

Reeve was clearly a wealthy grocer serving Basingstoke and the surrounding villages. His inventory valued at £249 included £76 of goods in the shop (disappointingly not separately listed). He was owed £100 presumably by customers. Executors, or administrators if a person died intestate, had to account to the consistory court for their administration of the deceased's estate. A few of these accounts of administration survive in the records of the bishopric of Winchester, one of which was the account of the administration of John Reve’s estate by his wife, Joanne, who had been appointed to administer his estate by the consistory court. These accounts were submitted to the court in 1624 and are posted here below the inventory. They show she paid her husband’s debts presumably to his suppliers, one of whom lived in London.