Basingstoke Probate Material 1681-1690

For this period 23 probate documents have been selected to reflect the range of occupations in the town and show the move to brewing following the decline in the cloth industry. Three documents relate to the wealthy Acton family and two to men serving the town’s medical needs – an apothecary and a surgeon.

19 wills and 10 inventories have been transcribed by the Wills Group of the New Victoria County of Hampshire project based in Basingstoke. These transcriptions have been made from copies of original probate documents supplied by Hampshire Record Office and The National Archives. Words have been modernized and punctuation added to make reading easier but names have been transcribed as written. Words in italics indicate omissions in the original document which have been added to make sense of the text. Words in square brackets indicate that they have been transcribed as seen but where the meaning is unclear. Basingstoke is described as being in the county of Southampton, the old name for Hampshire.

Links to the documents are below and a glossary is attached of unusual words.

• Thomas Head/Hed, victualler (Will and Inventory), 1681
• William Warner senior, maltster (Inventory), 1681
• Walter Froud/Froude, yeoman (Will and Bond), 1681
• Thomas Hall senior, maltster (Will and Inventory), 1683
• Richard Hannington, maltster (Will and Inventory), 1683
• John Eastgate, victualler (Will, Inventory and Oath), 1684
• John Thorpe, clothier (Will), 1684
• John Watts, innkeeper (Will), 1684
• Richard Cox, bricklayer (Inventory and Court Paper), 1685
• Bernard Wright, physician/surgeon (Inventory and Court Paper), 1685
• William Smith, butcher (Will), 1685
• Joseph Ashborne, victualler (Will), 1686
• Edward Acton, gentleman (Will), 1686
• Joane Acton, widow (Will), 1686
• Richard Hall, yeoman (Will), 1686
• Thomas Hall, yeoman (WIll), 1687
• Obadiah Kew, tailor (Will and Inventory), 1688
• Hugh White, apothecary (Will), 1688
• John Davies, maltster (Will), 1688
• Thomas Bramley/Bromley, clothier/victualler (Will and Inventory), 1689
• Christopher Eastgate, feltmaker (Inventory), 1689
• William Denyer/Dennier, husbandman (Will), 1690
• James Acton, gentleman (Will), 1690