Grant revoking?

[cfbandit]

the image doesn't appear to be showing up so its at https://ibb.co/QMDvTC9

I ordered my second great grandfather's probate record from the service and received a copy of his will and probate record with Pauline Greenwood and John James Stanley as his executor. It seemed like everything was in order until my cousin pointed out that there's a second line on the probate index that seems to ALSO refer to my William Stanley.

John James is his proven son, but I don't have a record of marriage for either an Ellen OR Pauline Greenwood. We're looking for that now.

So this brings up two questions for me:
1. What does it mean when a grant is revoked? Is that essentially saying they found his will invalid?
2. Is an estate of that size unusual for a colliery hewer? It seems large to me but I admit I don't have much knowledge of how well paid a hewer would be.

 

[Stuart]

Probate would be revoked if the court found something wrong, which might not be the will. But as it was followed by an administration (presumably as William was now intestate) the will is the obvious reason. A will can be invalid for several reasons, but this case is much more interesting, as it was declared to be forged! And Paulina Greenwood was convicted of "uttering a forged document purporting to be a will" in November.

This is from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of 19 November 1931:


So do you have access to the British Newspaper Archive? There are some much longer reports of the trial and the earlier committal, which should have useful family history in them.

 

[cfbandit]

Whoa! I definitely need to subscribe again because this looks FASCINATING. I definitely need to order more.

 

[peter]

Could make a good story for the newsletter....

 

[cfbandit]

Oh I definitely think so. There's a wife Ellen now I have to find though. She's previously unknown to me - and nothing is really coming up in the area as a right person. I was previously stumbling over why and how Paulina was related. This is a really interesting story. I've got five newspaper articles saved from around the area.

 

[cfbandit]

I ordered the 1921 census for William, and it gets more complicated - he was living with the wife Ellen, and an adopted son, Herbert Thompson, b. 1903 in Langley Mills, Derbyshire (deceased as of 2006).
I think I might have found Ellen was actually Helen, and she had a previous adopted relationship with a different husband, and there's a woman tracing her on Ancestry that says there's a third set of parents for him that are the actual biological parents. So far they haven't responded to my inquiry yet though.
Still no marriage record though, I've checked all the services and nothing seems to come up. William's first wife Agnes died in 1912, so it would have to be after that, and he only lived in Stanton Hill Notts (Skegby) during that time, so it would make the area of search quite small - typically I find most of the Stanleys in Mansfield District - so I'm coming up blank on where to search next. Have to keep thinking about it.