More Gloucestershire wills and inventories now available on Ancestry

The images of a further 1000 wills and inventories are now available to view on Gloucestershire’s Ancestry sub site. These are largely the images of wills and inventories from three of the County’s ecclesiastical peculiars. These peculiars were based around manors which belonged to the Bishop of Worcester, and as such they did not join the Diocese of Gloucester until 1847. Until this time the rector of each peculiar retained the right to prove wills and grant probate administrations and marriage licences.

A tale of two elections

Dry, dusty, dull and just not at all interesting.

If that is what you think about elections take a look at the Parliamentary election and by- elections in 1847 and 1848 for the Cheltenham constituency. There was no shortage of excitement leading up to and at, both events.

The Quest for the City of Gloucester Rose

My quest began at a Gloucester Civic Trust meeting in April at which Jason Smith talked about ways of promoting the city. Our local history society publishes a regular newsletter which includes a section on Gloucester’s namesakes and, during the meeting, someone referred to the Gloucester rose. I thought that that this would be an easy topic to research for the next newsletter. How wrong I was!