TOMBS OF TESTIMONY

Evening Star, Issue 19637, 17 August 1927, Page 12

TOMBS OF TESTIMONY

HISTORIC SOMERSET HOUSE ABOUT 203,000 WILLS EVERY YEAR There aro fc./ buildings in London which Londoners, know bettor, and at tbo same time know worse, than Somerset House. Behind that familiar, admired, unpenetrated facade is hidden one of the most accurate aful smoothest-working organisations ‘in Europe. Indeed, iL has to be, for the repository o! the wills of England and .Wales is being lillcd with such spued that only tho besi organisation can cope with it. .Between bO.'uOO and 60,1-00 giants of prohalo or administration, says tho Daily Mail,' an made' each year at the principal probali registry, and some 50,000 notices of apphelions for grants in district probate rcgislric have to pass through there, the origimi j will m the principal registry cases being de posited at the registry, while a copy is math I of both the principal am! district registry 1 wills, and of every grant, and stored To. ' reference. This means that room has lo be | found annually for something like 200,00documents The earliest wills stored go back io tin year 1487, two years after Richard 111. fcl on Boaworth Field, and at the present rjitr , of production it is not -urprising that tin limit of space has almost been readied h tho great strong rooms, and tho adaplatioi of vaults for storage purposes has begun. SLUING SHAKESPEARE'S, WILL. ’ Tins strong rooms proper aro a series o chambers with steel doors, into which t profane may not enter The phrasi “docketing” finds its truest expre.ssioi 1 within, tor the wills of the people of Britaii arc folded lengthwise in parchment envois lincl in bundles between two pieces of ston pasteboard, and at a later period furl lie prolocicd in small boxes. Some '■elobratod unci important wills so specially protected and bound, some bein' placed under glass to protect them from Up damage of lime and of modern curiosity For, though nut everyone knows it, it is pos sibio for a couple of shilling to see iho origi | mil of any of the great wills of the past. Tim will for which there is most clemam is that of Shakos pea re which, on an avenge, is brought up for examination two elhrev limes a week. Bacon’s will is hank asked for at all. but there is a certain fh‘ maiid lor Nelson's, while United States vistor? come?regularly to see William Penn's, j There aro“?omo odd and curious will I winch need special storage, the most notable of which is perhaps that, of a sailor in the I Roval N'avy, who scratched bis tostamdr ;on ’an identity disc. His ship was sunk r j (bo war, and he was drowned, but hi? idon* | tity disc was washed up by the son, am' though the will can only be read with difliI rully upon holding "(he disc at a slant it | was duly admitted to probate. The, will o' I a sailor at sea or a soldier or airman on , iiclive mililary service is the only one which can be valid without tho signatures , of wi I nesses. | THE ROOMS OF SILENCE. Not, far from tho strong room proper is a series of silent rooms slocked with shelves upon shelves of copies of wills. They are in tall, broad volumes, whose stylo seems scarcely lo have altered in 150 years, though the material of binding seems sometimes lo have varied Generally I hoy arc of old calf, tinted by lime to orange, and allacln-d io their backs arc two loose le-allmr bauds, | by wh eh I hoy are more easily extracted and handled. One goes through rumn upon room, and there are always tire same shelves upon shelves and the Tamo volumes above encompassing the visitor, and dbappuai iug in vistas 'before him. Uniformity reigns and indexing supports. There is one corridor, however, where Lie former cede? astical po.-sC-.soi'? —-for it uiu-i , bo remembered lhal. the probate and divorce j departments depended iill 1858 upon the old i ec -lesiastical courts —seem lo have disliked or grown lirod of this uniformity, and they have given names to the volumes, calling them as. if they wore linrses, after national heroes and famous clerics, and oven saints. One big volume here is called ‘I. ie?ar,’ another 'St. F.loi. and, no- doubt, if anyone wanted to see the part'cular volumes, • Pompev' or * Laud was asked for by name and Mint to some reading room. USELESS PILES OF AFFIDAVITS. Near by one may peer into locked rooms, cm whoso bliclves arc piled undies? affidavits long past their me. But Somerset House is obliged by statutes to store them, and they remain there endlessly and to no end, uiivEiiod and lo be unvisiled uniil the Crack of destiny, seen only by the cleaner? I who light off the gathering du>l. Women, with their twin instincts for tidiness amide?( ruction, would be led shrieking and fainting from the sight of those forlorn tomb? of testimony. In llie strong loom?, where tho wills are stored, iheic j?, of course, a vigilant body of men regularly at work, armed with vacuum cleaners, so Unit all may be kept, neat and spick and ,-pan. IVih.ips by revulsion, but also by uci-cs-tiiy. the. occupants of the registry are one of tho quickest. and least, dusty ot home? of workers lhe Stale possesses. 'I he yearly influx of wills —and, i.n addition to (lire, the whole of iho divorce work of the .London courls—is dealt with by some 150 workers only, including ihirty-iwo typist?. Some of the lypists, by Ihe way, do work worthy of a museum of modernity. The typing in the great volume?, which t-onlain Iho copies of wills, has something ot Ihe fairness ami beauty of early print, and yet it i> done liv piecework at a. high rale oi speed, and iho text is almost the most in-t-.-ienlc jargon man has devised. A. SEARCHING SCRUTINY. There aro thunderous typing rooms, but other rooms a visitor sees: are calm one.-, which seem to draw their inspiration from iho classical mantelpieces which adorn them. The backbone of flic work is done in what, are technically called " reals,” rooms in which a. principal clerk, of vast experience, with an assistant and lour others, may deal with lifly grants of probale or administration a diry, sumo of the wills being jxirhaps of thirty pages, dissecting _ them for technical mistakes, which tend in these days to multiply. More strictly speaking, (he mistakes occur not- so much in the wills as in ike gathering and presentation of the dossier of papers which must accompany them. A frequent trap is, of all things, hole? made by pins The probate officials cannot accept without inquiry documents bearing! pin holes in a corner, for this indicates that, some documents, possibly of a testamentary nature, have been annexed at some time, and not until the person desiring to prove Ihe will can explain these or produce documents in conformity is it fell that, the rights of the, testator have been sufficiently safeguarded.