SHAKESPEARE’S HOME

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 August 1930, Page 12

SHAKESPEARE’S HOME

WHEN BROKERS WERE IN. Shakespeare’s house once had the brokers in. Documentary evidence of this has been found by Mr Frank Marcham at the Record Office, in the Calendar of Chancery Cases. The very rare signature of the poet’s eldest daughter, Susanna Hall, is appended to the document. Only three .such signatures are known. The other two are at Stratford-on-Avon. “The bard’s eldest daughter,” said Mr Marcham to a. “Daily Chronicle” representative, “married Dr John Hall, who had an extensive medical practice in Warwick. “William Shakespeare died in 1.616, but Susanna and her husband lived on at the house in New Place, Strat-ford-on-Avon, and-in 1638, the study, which was once Shakespeare’s, was invaded by the two brokers’ men, Anthony Smythe and Edward Rawlins, who, as sheriff’s officers, had to exe cute the judgment given to recover the sum of £77, which debt had been proved by Baldwyn Brookes, a wealthy local mercer. “The document which I have found, and which has now been transferred to the Museum, where it was inspected by the Master of the Rolls, is ‘the answer of Susan Hall, widow, and Thomas Nashe, gent., to the Bill of Complaint.’ Nashe, of course, was Susan’s son-in-law. He married Shakespeare’s grand-daughter. “Special features of this document are the references it contains to ‘William Shakespeare, gent., her late father, deceased.’ “The defendants state that the sheriff’s officers did ‘breake open the Doores and Studdy of the said house and rashlye seize uppon and take divers bookes, boxes, Deskes, monyes . . . goodes . . . of the said John Hall's as of this defendant Thomas Nashe.’ “In his will John Hall mentions ‘my studdy of Bookes.’ He also mentions the MSS, in his study, but what treasures of Shakespeareana were taken away by the brokers is . never likely to be known.” ' Mr Marcham is publishing shortly all the documents in this suit, and those in a cross-suit by Susan Hall, as well as an earlier suit against John. Hall. The re-discovered document is on parchment, in an excellent state of .preservation. It was sworn on May 5 at Stratford and delivered to Master Robert Riche, the Court of Chancery then being at Westminster. In the statement Susan admits that Hall’s goods and chattels were worth £lOOO, and it was in respect of these that the brokers raided Shakespeare’s house tw distrain for the £77 under' judgment.