{"id":4209,"date":"2025-11-18T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:08:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:08:33","slug":"will-of-the-month-friendship-and-kindness-shown-to-a-pembrokeshire-clerk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2025\/11\/18\/will-of-the-month-friendship-and-kindness-shown-to-a-pembrokeshire-clerk\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: Friendship and \u2018Kindness\u2019 shown to a Pembrokeshire Clerk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On paper, this month\u2019s featured testator lived a very different life to the subject of last month\u2019s blog post.<\/a> Our last post took us to Tudor London, and explored the deathbed will of Margery Gadyng, a young married woman who died suddenly and left behind several children. In this post we travel to late eighteenth-century Haverfordwest, county town of Pembrokeshire, and explore a will made by an older widowed clergyman several months before he died, leaving no close relatives. In one sense, these two disparate lives capture the range of testators who feature in our sample of 25,000 wills made between 1540 and 1790. Yet in practice, both testators\u2019 acknowledgments of friendship, and their desire to recompense the kindness shown towards them in life, reveal some similarities in values and wishes expressed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Haverfordwest Castle, painted in 1794. A familiar view to our testator, who was living nearby just a few years before. https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Haverfordwest_Castle.jpeg<\/a> <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A \u2018Clerk\u2019 and schoolmaster of Haverfordwest <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reverend William Thomas, \u2018Clerk\u2019, had been a schoolmaster of the Haverfordwest Free Grammar School, but did not appear to be attached to a particular church.[1]<\/a> He was a resident of the parish of Saint Martin Haverfordwest, but asked to be buried in the churchyard of nearby St David Prendergast. Another bequest suggests that he had once served the church of Wiston, a village some six miles outside of the town. He left money to the poor of both Saint Thomas Haverfordwest and Wiston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas appeared to have few surviving relatives. No wife or widow was mentioned, only a few kinsmen and women, and \u2018my late Son George Saintlo Thomas\u2019, who had reached adulthood before predeceasing his father. In the absence of surviving children, the majority of Thomas\u2019s bequests were made to friends, many of whom were also clergy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A close detail of the old library of Strahov in Prague, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Old_books_(6365104687).jpg<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

To Thomas Ayleway he left several books befitting a man of learning, including: \u2018ffothergills Sermons, Bishop of Oxfords Sermons, the ffirst and Third Volumes of Scot\u2019s Christian life and Ruddiman\u2019s latin Grammer\u2019. Testators didn\u2019t always include the titles of books bequeathed, but such details are always insightful, in this case showing Thomas\u2019s interest in works by defenders of Anglican orthodoxy. Ayleway also received several items related to horse-riding, including \u2018my Horse Bridle Saddle my second best Suit of Cloaths, Horsemans Coat and Boots\u2019. These bequests are indicative of the masculine pursuits shared by these two men who occupied the professional classes.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Breeches I wear every day\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several of Thomas\u2019s friends received bequests of clothing. He left to \u2018my ffriend Peter Roch Clerk my Gown and Cassock\u2019, ostensibly worn frequently as part of his professional duties. Another friend, \u2018William Tasker Clerk\u2019, curate of Saint Martin Haverfordwest, received \u2018my best hat if he please to accept of it\u2019 while Billy Rees was given \u2018the Coat Waistcoat and Breeches I wear every day\u2019.[3]<\/a> A testator\u2019s best or everyday clothing may have been useful and readily reusable, but such bequests also suggest a close degree of familiarity with the beneficiary. Thomas also left significant gifts to his friends\u2019 children. He gave feather beds to the two daughters of James Winter, while one Jane Phillips, daughter of \u2018my ffriend George Philipps\u2019 received \u2018my Six Silver Tea Spoons and Tongs and my three Silver Table Spoons\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Man’s waistcoat, 1770s, British; Black satin, https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O357110\/waistcoat-unknown\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018the Great Kindness shewn me\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The personal possessions and household objects mentioned in Thomas\u2019s will hint at various aspects of his professional life and leisure: his horse-riding, sermon-reading, and tea-drinking. But many of Thomas\u2019s larger bequests are revealing of other aspects of his story: recognising \u2018kindnesses\u2019 shown to him during his life and career, or acknowledging the work of those who had served or helped him in some way. He divided up the rest of his \u2018Household ffurniture herein not before disposed\u2019 between his former servant Sarah Rees, and his current servant Martha Evans. Three Guineas were left to the widow of the man who served Wiston church \u2018for three Months at a time where I was unable to serve it\u2019. Turning to his funeral, he requested his \u2018Body to be carried to the Grave by Eight Poor Men\u2019 and named each of them. As with his recognition of assistance given in life, each of these eight men would receive five shillings for this task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest bequest, \u2018the rest residue and Remainder of my Personal Estate\u2019 was left to his friend and executor Dr George Philipps, \u2018in acknowledgment of the Great Kindness shewn me\u2019 by his father and uncle, who were \u2018Chiefly Instrumental in Procuring for me the Mastership of the ffree School of the said Town and County much to the benefit of me and my ffamily\u2019. Thomas acknowledged that the influence of these contacts had seen him appointed to a stable position as a schoolmaster, and that the attendant good living advanced the fortunes of his family. Yet, at the time of his death, it appears that Thomas had no surviving close family to pass this accumulated estate onto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018as remote from every other grave as conveniently may be\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a man who had appeared so embedded in the community of Haverfordwest, who named many local friends, and who had made multiple charitable bequests to the parish poor, Thomas\u2019s final burial wishes are somewhat jarring. Thomas asked to be \u2018privately buried at eight o Clock in the Morning in the Church yard of Prendergast as remote from every other grave as conveniently may be\u2019.[4]<\/a> We can only speculate as to the reasons for Thomas\u2019s marked desire to have such a private burial, bereft of mourners, and to be set apart from the rest of the churchyard and the rest of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The east side and churchyard of St David\u2019s Prendergast, Haverfordwest. Thomas asked to be buried here. <\/em>https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:East_side_of_St_David%27s_Church,_Prendergast,_Haverfordwest_-_geograph.org.uk_-_6086814.jpg<\/em><\/a>  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Higher status testators sometimes expressed their wish to be buried in a coveted location: before the altar, or adjacent to their usual pew, and many other expressed a wish to be buried near relatives.[5]<\/a> Thomas\u2019s will implied that at least one son had pre-deceased him, presumably his wife had too, but we have no further information about their lives, or where they were laid to rest. In this final statement of wishes, Thomas had ostensibly set his mind to purely practical decisions, and perhaps the bereavements hinted at in the document had occurred a considerable time ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be tempting to read wills as though they were autobiographies: Margery Gadyng\u2019s will, discussed at the beginning of this post and in further detail last month,<\/a> is certainly one example that provides a vivid image of a life. But wills can only ever act as a snapshot of a person\u2019s wishes and relationships at one particular moment, and can only ever provide a glimpse of the decades that had elapsed before. It appears that Reverend Thomas the clerk, the schoolmaster, the friend, the colleague, the father, and the husband (?) had to be accessible to others in many ways throughout his life. As twenty-first century readers, we are forced, to a certain extent, to respect his wishes for privacy and inaccessibility in death.<\/p>\n\n\n