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I can fill in some details from the Court of Orphans records and the probate record:

8 April 1651: Anne Smith (widow of William Smith, woodmonger), now married to John Haslegrave of Limehouse, are bound to provide an inventory of WS's estate.
15 Jul 1651: Felix Wombwell, mariner of St Giles Cripplegate, is additionally bound to provide an inventory of WS's estate.
31 Jul 1651: all the above (Anne, John and Felix) -- having supplied the inventory -- are bound to secure the portion for the orphans
30 Mar 1652: the estate is secured (£737 and £562 legacy money) for two orphan daughters Joan and Fortune. (Note that Joan is likely the older of the two)
8 Mar 1652/3: Fortune is licensed to marry John Dorrington, mariner, subject to his providing her with a jointure.
23 Nov 1654: Fortune and John declare satisfaction of her portion.

The early inventory bonds indicate that WS left an administration rather than a will. There is a PCC administration for a William Smith of Stepney for 1649 which says "renounced and will pr. Oct 1650". So I checked the online PCC index, and there is a will for WS dated 23 Oct 1650. So you're in luck!

It's not clear what happened with probate, but possibly the Anne took out an administration and subsequently discovered that a will had been made.

The Woodmongers' Company was dissolved relatively early and unfortunately no company archive survives.


cheers,
Mike

Hello,

The main data on the bottom sheet is probably constructed from probate, parish and apprenticeship records. The 'MT' by Edmund's name stands for Merchant Taylor (he was the son of John Fabian and apprenticed in that company).
The code 9381 near the top right of the sheet would tell you more about the sources. I believe the Society of Genealogists has a copy of the source list -- I don't know if it has been digitized.

The 'surveys' subcategory is something that has been used to organise the data -- it's not in Boyd's entry.

The top entry is dated 9 Oct 1665.
My guess is that William Shrimpton is the administrator of Nicholas FitzJeffery and that Richard Cantrell and Henry Smith are FitzJeffery's creditors. So Shrimpton would need to settle the estate debts with those two.
(Again, the code 40 115 would say more about the source of the record and how to interpret it).

cheers,
Mike

Doctors' Commons was the host to various London courts, so to find cases held there the best approach is to look at the archive for the court where the case was in process, rather than for Doctors Commons.

From the description, it looks like the case you have is probably from the London Consistory Court. The records are in the LMA under DL/C. The archive has a fine collection of depositions, which can go into an extraordinary level of detail. If you are lucky (and if the dispute got that far), these will survive for your case.

I checked apprenticeship records and nothing turned up (though there is an Arthur Hannam, peruke maker, working in the city in the mid to late 18th century).

A possibility is that he was born outside London into a family with some financial resources, settled with his own family and business in Westminster, and then retired back to the neighbourhood of his birth. This wasn't an uncommon pattern of behaviour. I realise it's not enormously helpful but it's worth keeping in mind that he may have died outside London.

Joseph Hayes son of Isaac, broker of Bethnal Green, appr. to John Lehook on 5 Mar 1744.

This date is for the binding of apprentice to master -- the apprentice is usually about 14. Joseph doesn't appear to be in the freedom admission papers index (though that index has lots of problems) so may not have completed his apprenticeship.

A quick index check didn't show a birth for this Joseph, but there is a death of a Peter Hays, son of Isaac, Bethnal Green 13 Apr 1747, so 'Peter' seems to be a family name.

Note that this is probably a fairly well off family.