The overseers’ vouchers for Darlaston contain a number from Richard Bills for flour, household items, provisions and grocery goods including sugar, tobacco, pepper, tallow soap, oatmeal, treacle, yarn, a brush, and candles. From such goods it might be expected that Bills was a grocer and provision dealer, but there is also a voucher for 500 bricks, others for ‘interest paid to the lodge’ and one that includes ‘26 weeks pay for Mrs Dixon at 2s 6d’. Given the variety of receipts, questions arise as to who Richard Bills was and what business or businesses he traded in, particularly as his will of 1849 describes him as an ironmaster.
For what follows it is helpful to have a simplified family tree of the Bills family. The family relationships are derived from the wills of Richard Bills the elder (proved 1819) and Richard Bills the younger (proved 1849). The situation is complicated by the fact that two of the daughters of Richard Bills the elder (Ann and Sarah) married men with the surname of Bill. Not all dates for family members have been traced; others need to be double-checked.
Richard Bills (d.1818) = Mary
They had Richard (1777-1849) who married Elizabeth Mills; Samuel; Ann (who married Samuel Bill), Sarah (who married William Bill of Brownhills); and Elizabeth who married Abel Cartwright. Elizabeth and Abel Cartwright had four children: Francis, Richard, George and John.
Richard’s (d.1849) wife, Elizabeth, was the widow of Thomas Mills, by whom she had had a son, Samuel (d.1864). Richard became Samuel’s step-father, although some documents refer to Samuel Mills as Richard Bill’s ‘son in law’.
After the just debts funeral charges and expenses had been paid, the will of Richard the elder stipulated that his real estate and ‘the use wear and enjoyment of all my stockhold goods, money, securities for money, personal estate and effects’ should go to his wife Mary, and after her death to ‘my son in law Samuel Bill and Thomas Harper of Darlaston gunlock filer’ upon trust. They were instructed to sell and dispose of his real estate and premises either by public auction or private contracts as they thought proper.
One third of the money raised was to be given to ‘my said son in law Samuel Bill and Ann his wife to and for their own use and benefit’. One other third to ‘my son in law William Bill of Brown Hills, Staffordshire, and Sarah his wife to and for their own use and benefit and to my son in law Abel Cartwright of Darlaston, hinge-maker, the sum of £50 to and for his own use and benefit’. The residue and remainder of the money was to be put and placed ‘at interest on freehold or government security or securities’ and the interest paid to ‘my daughter Elizabeth Cartwright for and during the term of her natural life for her own sole separate use and benefit and not to be subject to or liable to the debts control or engagements of the present or future husband or husbands’. If Elizabeth died before her father, then her share of his estate was to pass to her children.
There is no mention in the will of Richard the younger.
Richard the elder nominated and appointed his wife Mary, Samuel Bill and William Bill as executors. There then follows a number of codicils. By the time of Richard’s death both his wife Mary and his daughter Elizabeth Cartwright had died. Consequently, all real and personal estate left to his wife was now bequeathed unto his son in law Samuel Bill and Thomas Harper upon trust. The £50 previously bequeathed to Abel was revoked (clearly Richard thought little of Abel), and the portion left to Elizabeth was now bequeathed to her children Francis, Richard, George and John equally to ‘share and share alike when and as they shall severally and respectively attain the age of twenty one years’.
Sources
Staffordshire Record Office
SRO, D1149/6/2/1/1/3, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 6 April 1816
SRO, D1149/6/2/1/1/19, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 4 May 1816
SRO, D1149/6/2/3/295, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 2 December 1817
SRO, D1149/6/2/3/280, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 11 December 1817
SRO, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, D1149/6/2/3/228, 13 January 1818
SRO, D1149/6/2/3/330, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 18 February 1818
SRO, D1149/6/2/3/157, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 4 September 1818
SRO, D1149/6/2/3/85, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 12 December 1818
SRO, D1149/6/2/4/57, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 19 May 1819
SRO, D1149/6/2/1/6/32, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, n.d.
SRO, D1149/6/2/7/5/39, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 21 November 1822
SRO, D1149/6/2/7/5/22, Darlaston Overseers’ vouchers, 25 November 1822
SRO, BC/11, Will of Richard Bills, gun lock maker, Darlaston, 1819
SRO, BC/11, Will of Richard Bills, Ironmaster, Darlaston, 1849
This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.