Over twenty years ago David Wright noted in his "Kent Probate Records" that a magisterial card index in 32 drawers of some 70,000 slips lay awaiting sorting, checking and publication in order to extend the British Record Society's coverage of Kent probates, the previous index (covering 1558-1577 and 1640-1650) having appeared many decades ago.
The work has now been completed and published in two volumes following an invitation in a previous KFHS journal for members to obtain them at an advantageous price. Once again, the editorship of Cliff Webb, FSA, has left no stone unturned in the quality and quantity of what has been produced, the ancillary material being just as interesting and important as the main index of wills and administrations.
Researchers can now enjoy lists of Kent Mayors, Canterbury aldermen, jurats from the ten principal east Kent towns, cathedral and diocesan officials and employees, parish clerks and other miscellaneous officials. The 1801 population of every Kent parish in the ancient county is given and whether it lay in the Canterbury or Rochester jurisdiction. Annual numbers of wills (peaking with 927 in 1625) give a grand total of 9,642. There is a master list of all Christian names, some highly recondite such as Ageus, Buckler, Chaddock, Clemise, Devonshire, Estievenote, Gallion, Jaquemine, Joss, Lactantius, Loyseken, Marquis, Nygas, Oste, Pasquier, Quintance, Sidras, Tutcher and Wolfram. The commonest Christian names are tabulated and reveal 25,301 men headed by John (5,745) and 4,500 women by Joan (774) with Mary coming only in fourth position. Next is a list of wills by place, many small parishes having entries in single figures. The largest totals are for Canterbury (2,556), Sandwich (1,249), Dover (856), Faversham (842), Maidstone (742), Cranbrook (581) and Lydd (536). In a pre-railway age Folkestone has only 244 but Hythe 414.
The main index of both wills and administrations takes up the lion's share of the two volumes. An accompanying map clearly shows the archidiaconal boundary as encompassing east Kent westwards to Sheppey, Rainham, Maidstone and Goudhurst, the remaining one third of the county comprising the Rochester diocese. The one small oversight is that neither of the two east Kent courts and their class numbers are described: the larger Archdeaconry court includes administrations (PRC3), original wills (PRC16) and register wills (PRC17); the much smaller Consistory court includes administrations (PRC22), original wills (PRC31) and register wills (PRC32). Much fuller details of such matters can be found in my "Kent Probate Records" (2004), and it bears repeating just one more time that in the absence of a will the administration acts can sometimes be very valuable and are ignored at the researcher's peril.
We are not quite finished. If you are interested in a particular parish, there is a magisterial index of Kent place names allowing easy extraction of all the entries. As might be expected with our coastal county, there are stray entries from Flanders and the low countries as well as from other English counties. The publication finishes with two more indexes: firstly of trades and occupations which include large sections of clergy and other religious men and women, and officials from every walk of life; and secondly of subjects including given ages, castles, diseases, hospitals, and ships' names.
The overly long wait for this publication is at an end and a cornucopia of fascinating information now available at every researcher's fingertips.
The publication can be purchased from The British Record Society website Publications section: https://www.britishrecordsociety.org/publications/144-145/