We continue to transcribe known Langham wills and associated documents from the 14th century to the 19th century.  Several are awaiting conservation so are not yet available. Some wills were fairly easy to read like those of John Smith the Ironmonger and his father Richard Smith the Blacksmith, both wills were proved on 12^th March 1705 but John made his in 1702. Copying from film was often difficult, especially if the writing was bleeding through from the previous page. Where we were allowed to photograph original wills the copy is much clearer. Richard Cheseldyn wrote his own will, and if you read the words aloud you will hear speech as it sounded in Langham in 1689. He was of a good, local yeoman family so he had been educated. Writing a document in the seventeenth century was quite an undertaking, even if you did not have to pay the local curate or a lawyer to do it for you. Parchment or paper would have to be purchased and the ink made. Henry Hornby signed his will in 1695 and may have written it himself, although it does not have the same immediacy as Richard Cheseldyne’s.  We get closer to Henry through his inventory which tells us how many rooms his house had and what was in them, but it doesn’t give details of his clothing. Henry was a Chandler, he was wealthier and had a larger house than Henry Hornby the Butcher who died in 1698. Many people in Langham did not make wills, they had too few of the world’s goods to make it necessary and could not afford the expense.  Those who did make wills have provided us with a window to look into their world, but we should not forget the majority. Select the Wills or Inventories links to the right of this text, the data is fully searchable. Not all the buttons are linked to data, this work will be completed before the end of 2011. Langham Village History Group 14th century Wills 15th century Wills 16th century Wills 17th+ century Wills 18th century Wills 19th century Wills Inventories