Sunday 18 January 2026, Matthews Hall Topsham. Chris will be joined by classical and folk musicians to retell in music the moving, joyful and absorbing stories of English wills. Tickets here.
At the University of Exeter, we are in the privileged position of being able to answer this question, since our Arts and Culture team offer unique ‘Creative Fellowships’ – short term placements that bring creative practitioners into research settings to explore artistic and academic process. In late 2024 the Co-Investigator on the wills project, Dr Laura Sangha, was chosen as a host for one of these Exeter Arts and Culture Creative Fellows. She collaborated with the composer, arranger, songwriter and performer Chris Hoban during a six month placement from January – June 2025.
Unlike arts funding in the form of commissions, Arts and Culture fellowships are exploratory placements that use current research as a springboard for conversation, reflection and collaborative development of ideas. This page is a record of how Laura and Chris’ collaboration developed, and what they got up to for their project ‘Wills as Windows onto Past Lives’.
Explore the collaboration from Laura Sangha’s point of view in these three blog posts.
The Wills Project Welcomes Creative Fellow Chris Hoban – ‘in regular conversations we are sketching out our shared areas of interest, those themes and features of wills that most catch our eyes (and ears)’. A blog post by Laura written early in the fellowship explaining why she applied and how she and Chris had begun. Includes coverage of a trip to The National Archives in Kew to see original wills in person.
History and Art / Art as History – ‘The work of transforming the stuff that survives from the past (texts, objects, landscapes, buildings …) into histories is a creative act, just as much as the process of turning it into a song, an illustration or a conversation.’ A blog post by Laura written at the end of the fellowship reflecting on everything that had happened. Includes coverage of a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum and a Linocut Print Workshop.
What’s in a Will? Using Public Engagement to Add Depth to a Project – ‘I’ve been working with Chris Hoban, a musician and creative practitioner, and he wanted to think of what we were doing as a three-way dialogue: me, him, and the testators’. An interview with Laura where she discusses public engagement with the wills project generally.
To capture his side of the collaboration, Chris Hoban wrote three reflective diary entries. 
February Diary Entry: ‘I am squinting at a photocopy, of a microfilm copy, of a scrivener’s copy, of a seventeenth century will…’. Chris muses about our visit to The National Archives, the materiality of wills, printed ballads, a widow from North Devon, and the challenges of transforming historical documents into music.
March Diary Entry: ‘Some voices require careful attention in order to be ‘heard’. Others blaze from the rooftops…’. In this post Chris gives us an insight into how he works, considers the different voices that emerge from wills and the sometimes very surprising stories that get related by testators. He also shares some lyrics inspired by the will of a seventeeth-century mariner.
April Diary Entry: ‘One will jumped out at me, because of the very unusual repetitive number patterns which were cited over and over again in the list of bequests – not to people who existed, but who might exist in the future…’. In this post Chris discusses some of the stories in the wills that have caught his eye, and he shares more of his wills inspired lyrics.
In the course of their conversations, Chris and Laura often returned to early modern ballads, the most popular form of music in early modern England. Ballads were hugely popular – the pop songs of the day – and they have therefore become a vital source of evidence for historians, particularly those interested in England’s cultural landscape and people’s everyday lives. These ballads linked the oral culture of the majority with the literate world of the written word, since the lyrics were not only sung, but were also printed and sold as ‘balladsheets’. These were very cheap, one-page publications, which were very often illustrated with a woodcut image. Below are two original balladsheets – these are from the English Broadside Ballad Archive, where you can view hundreds more examples, and even listen to recordings!
Chris and Laura were reflecting on the ballads’ combination of text, tune and image and started to wonder what adding a visual element to their own collaboration would bring – what if people were given some of Chris’ lyrics sparked by the wills and were asked in turn to draw on their creativity to illustrate them? The Arts and Culture team put the duo in contact with Emma Maloney of Exeter’s Double Elephant Print Workshop and she expertly assisted them to organise a print workshop at the University of Exeter on a sunny day in May 2025 where attendees did just that. Participants were given wills and lyrics to read in advance, and were asked to create a linocut (much quicker and easier to work with than wood) that would illustrate one of Chris’ songs.
On the day Chris performed some of the songs that participants were illustrating, the first time any of them had been aired. Afterwards everyone got stuck in with their carving tools and ink rollers. The attendees outdid themselves, creating the beautiful prints that illustrate this page and which can be seen below in all their glory. Many illustrators drew inspiration from ‘The Rings on My Fingers’, Chris’ song inspired by the will of Alice Walter, a widow of London who died in 1665. A halyard shanty about a Devon mariner who sold his trumpet so that his crewmates could have a party also proved popular, as did the very traditional memento mori motif, the grinning skull.
Prints created by (from top left-right): Esme Thompsett (hand with 3 rings above); Emily Vine (4 grinning skulls); Kit Barton (ship in colour); Laura Sangha (shield); Jane Tozer (black and white ship); Fiona Rourke (hand); Kit Barton (4 rings); Kate Watson (red ring); Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth (gold rings motif); Jane Witkin (trumpet player).
After the workshop Laura used Chris’ song lyrics and prints produced at the workshop to create an Arts and Culture ballad – The House of Denton, O!
‘An Evening of Stories and Songs’ took place at the Devon and Exeter Institute on the Cathedral Green on a very hot evening in June 2025.
Chris and Laura’s Arts and Culture collaboration has been exciting, surprising, challenging and extraordinarily enriching. It sent them off in many different directions – to a trumpeter’s ship, to plague ridden London, to the house of an Exeter alderman with a tombstone in the hall, and to the Devon coast to collect seaweed. Along the way they talked to other historians, to archivists, to other creative practitioners and more. As the collaboration drew to its official close, they decided they would like nothing more than to share its fruits with a wider audience, including many of the people they had encountered during their explorations. They therefore put together a joint performance that wove history with music.
Full story coming soon!
Following their very successful evening performance at the Devon and Exeter Institution Chris and Laura were invited to bring their histoy and music to the FUTURES: Festival of Discovery 2025. The Festival showcases research happening across the south west of England, with events taking place in Exeter, Bristol, Plymouth and Bath. Though the event took place after the end of the Arts and Culture fellowship, they once again generously supported the collaboration by providing additional funding.
Chris and Laura performed their ‘Stories and Songs’ on stage in the Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter city centre. Chris once again managed to put together a stellar ensemble of musicians to bring his compositions to life, and there was a really excellent turnout – more than a hundred people came to the Auditorium to learn more about the wills and see and hear Chris’ songs performed.
Chris Hoban (accordian, guitar, vocals).
Matthew Aaronson (guitar), Serena Rosewood (recorder) from Exeter University Folk Society.
Paul Kolendo (violin 1), Imogen Cleary (violin 2), Tristan Tatum (viola), Caspar Herberg (cello) from Exeter University Symphony Orchestra.
Roger Webster, Topsham’s notable Hurdy-Gurdy player
Laura Sangha, historical interludes.
What the Audience said:
Press
Free public festival of inspiring science and culture this month with the University of Exeter
Lights, Camera, Action! Performance and Film at the FUTURES Festival
Chris is a regular at the legendary Sidmouth Folk Festival, which has taken place in the Devon coastal town in the first week of August every year since 1955, attracting tens of thousands of visitors each time. In 2025 Chris returned to the festival to perform alongside The Lost Sound: Dartmoor Folk Choir, and Steve Knightley in a packed main tent on the Ham. One of the songs he peformed with The Lost Sound was ‘Blow his Old Trumpet’, his halyard shanty based on the will of a seafarer and ship’s trumpeter called John Lux (PROB 11/115/255). John Lux was from the parish of Powderham in Devon, just up the road from the University of Exeter, and he made his will in 1609 near the start of the reign of James I.
This rough footage, recorded from the audience by Laura, captures the magic that happens when Chris performs the song. As the audience joins in to sing the refrain and wish John Lux a health, a direct connection between Devonians past and present is made – John wished his fellow seafarers to make merry after his death, and we in turn now honour his wish by remembering his life. For a full performance of the song see the ‘Recording’ section below.
In October 2025 Chris was invited onto Exeter’s local community radio station, Phonic FM. He talked about his collaboration with Laura and the wills project team, and played two songs inspired by wills.
The first song was ‘The Rings on My Fingers’. This song has its roots into the will of the London widow Alice Walter (TNA PROB 11/317/428), proved in 1665 – you can read Emily Vine’s blog post about the will and see a full transcription here. Laura is also particularly interested in this will as she is writing a chapter on finger rings for the project’s edited collection of essays. As you will see the lyric really captures how the objects people owned carried meaning, conveyed emotions and were used to navigate personal relationships. This is particularly true of rings, which were the most commonly owned and bequeathed item of jewellery from the top to the bottom of society. These wearable personal items were more intimate and higher status gifts because they had a physical connection to the body of the deceased and were a direct link to them. It’s not surprising to find that testators often referred to rings in personal and unique terms, as Alice does, allowing us to learn a lot about their function, their previous owners, and their sentimental and symbolic importance.
The second song that Chris performed was a complete contrast: ‘Blow his Old Trumpet’ was based on the will of a seafarer and ship’s trumpeter called John Lux (PROB 11/115/255). John was from the parish of Powderham in Devon, just up the road from the University of Exeter, and he made his will in 1609 near the start of the reign of James I. His very short testament is one of a set of wills of Powderham mariners that are in The National Archives collection, a reminder of the importance of the sea to early modern Devonians. John is one of the most humble testators that feature in Chris’ songs, he had very few possessions to his name. Since John appointed his brother as executor of his will, and he left his assets to men of his ship’s company it is likely that he was a bachelor. John’s will touchingly evokes the community of fellows that made up his extended family – the ship’s surgeon receives five shillings, and the ship’s master, his mate and many others of the ships company are witnesses to the will. The unique bond that existed between these men rings out through John’s wish that the company should ‘drinke and be merrye withall’ after his death, and the spirit of that line carries straight through to Chris’ composition.
You can also listen to the full recording of the show below – but as this was recorded on a phone the sound quality is not as good as the clips above. You do get to hear Chris talk about another of his projects, as the Writer-in-Residence for Quay Words for Autumn 2025 – Chris is creating a series of songs inspired by the history of Exeter Quay and the River Exe.
