IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0074 ACC/0413
Held at: London Metropolitan Archives
Title: BRIDGES FAMILY
Date(s): 1684-1868
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 0.50 linear metres.
Name of creator(s): Various.
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Conveyances are transfers of land from one party to another, usually for money. Early forms of conveyance include feoffments, surrenders and admissions at manor courts (if the property was copyhold), final concords, common recoveries, bargains and sales and leases and releases.
Probate (also called proving a will) is the process of establishing the validity of a will, which was recorded in the grant of probate. If a person died intestate (without a valid will) their money, goods and possessions passed to their next of kin through an administration (or letters of administration) which had the same form in law as a will.
Abstract of title is a summary of prior ownership of a property, drawn up by solicitors. Such an abstract may go back several hundred years or just a few months, and was usually drawn up just prior to a sale.
Lease and release was the most common method of conveying freehold property from the later seventeenth century onwards, before the introduction of the modern conveyance in the late nineteenth century. The lease was granted for a year (sometimes six months), then on the following day the lessor released their right of ownership in return for the consideration (the thing for which land was transferred from one party to another, usually, of course, a sum of money).
A marriage settlement was a legal agreement drawn up before a marriage by the two parties, setting out terms with respect to rights of property and succession.
Source: British Records Association Guidelines 3: How to interpret deeds (available online).
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Records of the Bridges family relating to premises in Edmonton, Enfield, Pinner, Harrow, Hillingdon, Isleworth, Tottenham, Hackney, Twickenham, Clapton, Hampstead, Islington, Holborn, Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London., Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Chelsea, Bloomsbury, Stepney, City of Westminster, and Saint Clement Danes. The documents include releases, leases, extracts from court rolls, marriage certificates and settlements, legal case papers including Chancery court, probates, letters of administration, leases, abstracts of title, and conveyances. Also appointments by Justices of the Peace of John George Bridges and John William Bridges, both of 54, Torrington Square, as Special Constables, 1848.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Records arranged according to location: Middlesex; Old Middlesex; Westminster; Miscellaneous; and Special Constables.
Conditions governing access:
Available for general access.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London.
Physical characteristics:
Fit
Finding aids:
Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Gifted to the Archive by Essex Record Office, in May 1951.
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note:
Date(s) of descriptions: January to May 2011.