Add MS 74210

BENJAMIN GONSON THE YOUNGER, CLERK OF THE SHIPS: Original will; 1 Sept. 1594, with ratification, 25 May 1600. Signed by the testator on each page in an italic hand. Gonson, is described as 'Esquire', of Saybrights, Much Baddow, co. Essex. He bequeaths the manor of Great Darley, co. Essex, to his wife Mary for life, and thereafter a fourth part each to his sisters Benet (Wallenger), Ursula (Peterson), Anne (Fleming) and Thomasin (Fenton), and their heirs. Saybrights goes to Giles and Anne Fleming, while his houses in the City of London are to be sold and the proceeds divided. Minor bequests include one to his colleague and his father's successor as Treasurer of the Navy: 'Item I give to Sr John Hawkyns knight for a remembrance of my good will towardes him my pece of golde of fyftye ducketts. And I desyre him to be one of my overseers . . .'. Mary Gonson is appointed executor, along with Laurence Huse, LL.D., and Giles Fleming, respectively uncle and brother-in-law of the testator. Witnesses to the will (signed on f. 6) are John Ross, Daniel Peterson, also brother-in-law, Henry Bullington and William Nate, and to the ratification (f. 6v) John Nowell and William Clapham. Purchased at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, 20 Nov. 1997, lot 443.

Paper: ff. ii+6. 302 x 202mm. Sewn gathering of eight leaves secured at foot with green fabric tape. Watermark of pot with letters 'P O'. Contemporary pagination from 1 to 9, in error. Inscriptions in various hands on verso of first leaf (f. iv), viz.: '1594 .36. Eliz:' (near contemporary); 'For my Cousen Dick Euerard' (mid-17th cent.), that is, probably Sir Richard Everard, 1st Bart., of Much Waltham, sequestrator for Essex in 1644; and the file-number 'L910 / N 21758' (19th-cent.). Docketed (f. ii) 'Mr Beniaminns Gunsons Will'.