MRP: Symond Edmonds will
Symond Edmonds will
PROB 11/259 Berkeley 363-412 Will of Symon Edmonds, Alderman of Saint Mary Aldermansbury, City of London 06 November 1656
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04/12/11, CSG: Created page & pasted transcription to wiki
Abstract & context
Symon Edmonds the elder’s will is structured in an interesting way. He was evidently a wealthy man, whose main asset was the manor and lordship of Howell, Co. Lincoln. He appears also to have significant mortgages over other peoples’ properties, since he refers explicitly to his executors having control of these mortgages, sums due, interest and damages, and gives them the right to sell mortgaged lands if they have not been redeemed by the mortgagees when the mortgages fall due.
Edmonds structures his estate so that three annuities are chargeable on the manor. They total £220 and are payable in half year equal payments, to be paid out at the Insurance Office, Royal Exchange, to his eldest son Symon Edmonds (£100), to his third daughter Sarah Edmonds (£100), and to Sarah Byfeild (£20) . In the case of Byfeild the payment is indirect , through Parke and Wood, Edmonds executors, with the proviso that her husband is to have no claim on the money.
The manor goes equally to the first son Symon Edmonds and to the third son, Joseph Edmonds, chargeable with these annuities. Separately Symon had received a legacy £335-14s-3d (sic) and was forgiven £64-5s-9d “he owes me by booke as debt.” Samuell, the second son does better with a larger legacy, if he make good his cash and “give a true and just Accompte and make good his Accomptes to my Executors” he is bequeathed £600 andis forgiven £62-13s that he owes in Symon Edmonds’ books. Joseph, the third son gets the largest legacy, as well as half the estate - he is bequeathed £1000 whilst being forgiven £339-1s-6d he owes his father. The youngest daughter, Hester, receives a sizeable £1200 legacy, but no annuity.
The two eldest daughters, Ann Parke and Martha Wood, are married respectively to Sir Christopher Parke and Hugh Wood, who I believe to be the merchant Hugh Wood, and do not receive large legacies or annuities, presumably because they are well provided for. Edmonds is familiar with the names of all nine tenants on his manor, and gives them as a legacy each a half year’s forgiveness of rent on their land on the manor, with requirements that one cease a law suit against another, and that another complete the improvements to his land that he committed to do to Edmonds’ overseers.
It seems clear that Edmonds was a merchant, and probably a prominent haberdasher, given his gift of £100 to the Haberdashers, plus £40 for them to buy and engrave silver plate. He is resident in the parish of St Mary Aldermanburie at the time of death, and makes charitable gifts to the leading hospitals of London and Southwark, together with Bridewell prison, which is typical of a wealthy merchant.
He refers to his account books, and it seems likely that all three sons were in some form of merchant activity or trade, and had been borrowing from him. He also makes provision of £40 to have apprenticed his nephew, George King, and uses the language of a merchant early in his will when he refers to “the moietie of my said estate appertaining or belonging to my children unadventured or haveingreceived some advancement are not fully advanced”.
He makes no statement about where he was born, and describes Aldermanbury simply as the parish where he resides. It is possible, but not certain that he was born in Co. Lincoln, though he could have purchased the manor as an investment, as many successful merchants did.
The total value of the legacies given is substantial £6213, with quantified additional debt forgiveness of £465, and unquantified,but presumably small, debt forgiveness for Byfeild and Teller. The legacies, including the debt forgiveness come out of the testators’s moiety, which is the second moiety. Presumably the first equal moiety, which is to be distributed to Edmonds’ seven children according to the custom of the City of London is the same value, i.e. £6678. Thus the two moieties together are worth £13,356.
Also impressive is the ability of the manor to support annual annuities totalling £220. Assuming annuity rates of 5% this implies a capital value of at least £4400. £3900 has already been paid out in marriage portions for his two eldest daughters, and were to be counted into the first moiety to be distributed according to the Custom of London. Taken in its entirety, with the estimated capital value of the estate, the estate was worth £17,756 plus the unquantified value of the uncharged portion of the rents of the manor of Howell, Co. Lincoln.
Given the absence of any reference to investments in stock or ships, it does not seem likely that Symond Edmonds the elder was still an active merchant, and it is not clear whether or not this Symon Edmonds is the investor of £500 in the SVJS. Possibly the investor is the eldest son mentioned in Edmonds’will, whose own will I have not discovered.
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