Why wait 37 years to finalise a will?

[Forfarian]

The following notice appeared in The London Gazette on 4 March 1924: Notice is hereby given, that all creditors and other persons having any claims or demands against the estate of Joseph Ebenezer Landells Black, late of Collingwood Tower, Tynemouth, in the county of Northumberland (who died on the 8th day of March 1887, and whose will and codicil was proved in the Probate Division of the High Court of Justice at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne District Registry on the 29th day of April, 1887, by the Reverend John Black, William Daggett and Mary Jane Black, the executors named in the said will and codicil), are hereby required to send the particulars, in writing, of their claims and demands to the undersigned, the Solicitors for Ralph Hilton Philipson, the Trustee of the said will and codicil, on or before the 15th day of April, 1924, after which date the said Trustee will Proceed to distribute the assets of the said deceased amongst the parties entitled thereto, having regard only to the claims and demands of which he shall then have had notice ...."

Would anyone care to speculate why this notice did not appear until 37 years after probate was granted?

The Rev John Black was the brother of the deceased, and he died in 1888. William Dagget was a solictor/attorney in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and he too died in 1888. Mary Jane Black was the widow, and I have not found a death for her. She could have re-married, of course, and there are possible marriages - one in Gateshead in 1889 and one in South Shields in 1893.

[KGarrad]

Probably some property (or other asset?) was jointly owned with another person (or persons), and the length of time was due to the other person(s) still living.

[GrahamSimons]

Or - as I have found at least once - whoever was lined up to do the work never got round to it, and there was eventually a need to get it done as a result of another death and another Will being executed.

[scotmum]

There was still a Mrs Black at Collingwood Tower in January 1893, as she is noted in a list of donations of items to the Tynemouth Ladies Benevolent and Dorcas Society.

[majm]

 

I know of three of my direct ancestors whose probates were not sorted until after WWI, yet all three had died in the 1840s in England, with real property in Hants, and in New South Wales and in New Zealand.   It seems it took the Great War losses of family members, killed in action, to prompt the descendants to sort out various legal ownerships of real property that was being 'willed' to younger generations, but perhaps was not lawfully able to be transferred when it was not yet formally in testators' names ...     

JM

[arthurk]

There's no evidence of a further grant of probate between 1924 and 1930, so it must relate to assets that were included in the probate in 1887. The will itself might offer some clues, but without seeing it, one possible scenario is that some assets were left to Joseph's widow in trust during her lifetime, and after her death they needed to be distributed to other beneficiaries. (Note that in the Gazette extract, Ralph Hilton Philipson is described as Trustee.)

Given the length of time that had elapsed, any eventual beneficiaries named in the will may well have died, so they would have needed to trace the descendants of those beneficiaries or find other potential heirs, depending on exactly what the will said.

This theory is supported by an entry in the probate indexes for 1923. Using a site where keywords can be added, I've found an entry for Mary Jane Black of Middlesex, widow, who died that year (FreeBMD: age 74), and one of the executors was Ralph Hilton Philipson. They must surely be connected.

[Marmalady]

I have a case where the father left his estate to be shared by 3 sons, and will was proved and probate granted soon after his death.
Some 25 years or so later, a further grant of probate was made after one of the sons was declared dead as he had not been heard from since before his father's death despite  enquiries being made in the foreign country he was last known to have been in.
This second probate allowed for his share of the estate to be distributed between his brothers.

[ev]

Just to add to Arthurk findings -
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V5BB-B3X

Mary Black born c1850 Ireland.


ev

[WolfieSmith]

The other executor of Mary Jane Blacks Probate is a Neville Forth O'Brien, Stockbroker. Checking through census he was born in Sunderland, son of Walter Creagh O'Brien. From Walter Creagh O'Briens newspaper obituaries he was the oldest son of Samuel Madder O'Brien, Solictor, Court of Chancery Ireland.

Mary Jane Black was the only daughter of the late Samuel Madder O'Brien Esq, Solicitor, Dublin, from newspaper reports of her marriage to Joseph E. L. Black, at St Stephens Church, South Shields, 1 March 1870.

So Neville Forth O'Brien was Mary Jane Blacks nephew.

Alan