This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DNG.2ACIB/34.2.4 Message Board Post: Yvonne: what you didn't know about Lord Brougham is that he and his two surviving brothers concocted a way of disinheriting the sons of John Waugh Brougham - who was my g.g.grandfather. A letter from William (2nd Baron B&V) to my g.grandfather's youngest brother (a barrister and legal adviser to the Broughams) shows that the estates were transferred to William in 1832 'because Lord Brougham and James Brougham were so much in debt that if either died the estate would have to be sold'. In debt they may have been - but Brougham was entailed, and therefore could not be mortgaged. Moreover, William wrote that their father had died intestate - he did not, and his will shows the estate entailed to each son, and to their sons, in turn, so that it should have passed to my g.grandfather, who was the oldest surviving nephew. Lord Palmerston was not infavour of granting the second peerage in favour of William, who had done nothing to deserve it, but the excuse was found a! s you have stated it. Why was JWB's family disinherited? Your guess is as good as mine. I have copies of all the correspondence.