Will of Magdelaine Barker, 1703
19th February 2016From Edith Carey's Wills & Legacies, I, in the Library Collection, staff, p. 180.
I, Magdeleine Barker, wife of Mr Edward Hooper, being very weak of body ... desiring to have my body decently buried in the church of this thowne neare Mr Thomas Richardson, my late husband ... First, to the poore of the parish, 35 shillings; to Brigide Baker (sic) [Barker?], 5 shillings; to Mary Hooper, my present husband's daughter, all the moveable goods, clothes, linen, plates &c without any reservation ... wh. are now in the roome where I now lodge, as allsoe all the moveable goods wh. are in my house of Hauteville in the hands of the Honble Major Aspen according to the inventory I have written by his maid, except a bed in the little roome over the kitchin and another bed in the garrett with all there furniture which I give and bequeath to Dorothy Bradshaw, daughter of Doctor Bradshaw deceased, and now wife to Mr Thomas Byfield;¹ and lastly I give to Mr John Bonamy my good friend which I now doe name ... to be the Executor of my will ... £10 sterling desiring him to take care of my house and business until they are disposed ... and for debts &c the money may be taken on the money witch the Major is indebted to me for the rente of my house ... given ... 17 March 1702.
Ye mark of Magdeleine Barker.
C Andros witness. Je Andros witness. Tho: Rothley.
Reg: 2 April 1703.
See also: Acts of the Ecclesiastical Court II: Forbidding the Banns
¹ Dr Thomas Byfield, Doctor in Physick, will proved 9 December 1723, to be buried in Mortlake with his kindred; he leaves his wife Dorothy his patent for Sal Oleosum Vitale &c; this was the earilest compound ever patented. The will is interesting: see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol 52, 1898, p. 142. He had patented his sal volatile in 1711. 'MD and Fellow of the College of Physicians in Dublin,' he produced A short but full account of the rise, nature and management of the smallpox (1695). 'Upon his death his widow assured patrons they could still purchase the sal volatile, which she always prepared with her own hands, near thirty years.' For his disputes concerning the patent, see MacCleod, C, Inventing the Industrial Revolution, The English Patent System, 1600-1800, CUP, 2002, from which the preceding quotation is taken [p. 243.] He was author of a treatise on mineral water, in 1684 (see loc. cit.), and Some long vacation hours redeem'd: the Christian Examiner, London: John Penn, 1720. He turned radical millennarian and 'French prophet' after the arrival of the Huguenot Camisards in England.