Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills

When someone had property in both the Northern Province (the Archdiocese of York) and in the Southern Province (Archdiocese of Canterbury) then two probates of his will needed to be taken out from the two prerogative Courts, limited over the goods and chattels in each respective province.

Bear in mind that this did not mean that the testator had land in both provinces, as the church courts only had jurisdiction over personal estate, not real estate, i.e only over goods and chattels, money etc.

One of the reasons for double probate often came about because the testator had shares (for example, in canal companies or railways), or held funds in the Bank of England, as it was the address of the head office of the company the testator held shares in, or the address of the Bank of England, that determined if the testator held property in the Southern Province as well as the North.

I have searched the indexes of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) and found the following probates relating to Aughton. In theory, all these probates should have a matching probate in the Prerogative Court of York.

All these documents can be downloaded, for a fee, from the Documents Online website.

Name Place Date Reference
Reverend John Earle, M. A. Vicar of Aughton with East Cottingwith 02 July 1852 PROB 11/2156/78
Jane Fawcitt or Fawcett Widow of Latham 14 April 1660 PROB 11/297/510
Mary Leng Widow of Aughton 02 March 1818 PROB 11/1602/224
Hugh Rotherforth Yeoman of Aughton 15 April 1658 PROB 11/274/332