Sunderland wills and inventories, 1601-1650

Edition, with full explanatory apparatus, of wills and inventories from north-east England. Complete editorial team: Joan Briggs, Rita McGhee, John Smith, Jennifer Tindell, Ann Tumman, Xenia Webster What was to become the town of Sunderland emerged in the earlier seventeenth century from two parishes north and south of the river Wear, Monkwearmouth and Bishopwearmouth, developing from a small fishing village into a significant east-coast port and industrial centre; a charter granted by the bishop of Durham in 1630 confirms its status. This volume comprises its surviving probate documents from the period 1601-50, containing material relating to some ninety-one individuals, twelve of them women.

The inventories that accompany most of the wills (and insome cases survive where the wills do not) detail their household goods, thus constituting a rich source of information about ways of life and standards of living in the early seventeenth century. The wills and inventories are edited here in full in the original spelling, with a glossary, introduction, notes and an index.