The will of Starkie (or Starkey) Jennings 1769-1833, a fascinating 19th century example of a will made by a man of full testamentary capacity, but a disability which prevented him from articulating his wishes in a conventional way - it contains pictures of his daughters instead
A very touching real-life example of the principle that a person is not to be treated as lacking capacity unless all practicable steps have been taken to help him, now in s1(3) of the Mental Capacity Act 2005
On the page of dispositive provisions, he was able to mark with his pen which of his properties, drawn and named, should go to which of his daughters, also individually drawn and named
Sorry, this page isn’t the will itself, but headed “Attested Instructions for writing out the Subjoined Will”. Both Starkie Jennings’s daughters were married, and the will appears to have given them property income for life, independent of their husbands, then to their children
@UoYBorthwick have kindly sent me a PDF of the entire will, and I intend to write a blog about it. It as made on 5 May 1833 and pre-dates the Wills Act 1837. Starkie Jennings signed it with his mark (an x) and it and the instructions for it were attested by three witnesses
It may well have been a deathbed, or near-deathbed will, as although the date of death on the tombstone is indistinct on the picture @ms_peaceweaver found, one of the executors, John Hartley, a grocer of Haworth, swore the oath for probate at York on 27 August 1833
Starkey Jennings died only a few weeks after making his will on 5 May 1833, and on 31 May 1833 was buried at Haworth. The burial service was conducted by Rev Patrick Bronte, father of the novelists Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte
Correction - the will was made on 25 May 1833, he died on 27 May and was buried by the Rev Bronte on 31 May. Starkey Jennings was a painter, so the drawings of his daughters and the properties in Haworth on the page of will instructions would have been a familiar medium for him
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About a year ago, I was researching and writing a legal blog on a 2019 inheritance case which had given rise to a lot of comment, on how the law of property and succession determines who is the survivor where the order in which people died is uncertain
Part of the history of this question of law is a case which arose out of the death of an officer of Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to the Arctic in search of the North-West passage, a disaster, and a mystery, in which every life was lost. I pursued my interest in this story
And over the course of this year have researched and written about the life stories behind and beyond the case, a remarkable decision for its time, ultimately based on hearsay evidence from Inuit inhabitants of the Arctic, links below
Judgment of the Court of Appeal in the women’s pensions #backto60 case, unanimously dismissing the appeal. Court ruled there was 1. no age discrimination, 2. sufficient notice to those affected by changes by DWP, 3. too long a delay in seeking judicial review
No age or sex discrimination, I should have said. The ruling will be a bitter disappointment to campaigners and crowdfunding supporters of the appeal
A disappointment exacerbated by the way in which expectations of the outcome (that the legal arguments would prevail, and that individual women would receive financial restitution) were raised by the campaigners, hand in hand with crowdfunding which lacked transparency
A short thread to highlight & add to @AdamWagner1 article on the US alt-right's narrative of justice in the UK, as seen through recent high-profile cases which have attracted worldwide attention 1/
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It isn't limited either to the US or to a monolithic 'alt-right' as responses to the two English infants' end-of-life best interests decisions (Charlie Gard & Alfie Evans) in the last year have showed 2/
Some in the USA have used these decisions as a sounding board for opposition to state-funded universal healthcare ("single payer", "death panels") even though it was not a factor in the decision in either case 3/