A couple of comments on recent contributions: (1) Mr.Collins in 'Pride and Prejudice' would have been the next eligible beneficiary under a "tail male" entail: the most common sort of arrangement. (2) Since early times it was possible for the current beneficiary under a "strict settlement" and his next entitled heir to act together to "bar the entail". Following the Settled Land Act 1925 it remained possible to set up a settlement limited effectively to 2 generations. Entailed settlements were not fully abolished until the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996. (3) The Duke of Marlborough did not invoke the Settled Lane Act but, in a highly unusual move, applied to the High Court to vary the terms of the family trust so as to pass over his oldest son in order to preserve the estate, i.e. by getting the court to declare that the Marquis of Blandford was unfit and incapable of managing his affairs properly such that he would be likely to commit "waste", i.e. fritter away the trust property. Jamie Blandford therefore will eventually inherit the title of Duke of Marlborough, but has been effectively disinherited by being passed over in favour of his younger half-brother financially. SANDRA LOVEGROVE Researching LOVEGROVEs in all places and at all times. Please do visit the LOVEGROVE Information Centre on http://www.lovegrove.f9.co.uk/ons/

In message <002401c4ba2e$86bfdf80$63dbae51@lovegrove>, Sandra Lovegrove <lovegrove@one-name.org> writes >A couple of comments on recent contributions: > >(1) Mr.Collins in 'Pride and Prejudice' would have been the next >eligible beneficiary under a "tail male" entail: the most common sort >of arrangement. tail male has to go THROUGH males. The next male heir would be a son or grandson from an uncle or even great uncle of Mr Bennett, not from his sister's son. -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

In message of 26 Oct, Eve McLaughlin <eve@varneys.demon.co.uk> wrote: > In message <002401c4ba2e$86bfdf80$63dbae51@lovegrove>, Sandra Lovegrove > <lovegrove@one-name.org> writes > >A couple of comments on recent contributions: > > > >(1) Mr.Collins in 'Pride and Prejudice' would have been the next > >eligible beneficiary under a "tail male" entail: the most common sort > >of arrangement. > tail male has to go THROUGH males. The next male heir would be a son or > grandson from an uncle or even great uncle of Mr Bennett, not from his > sister's son. That is not disputed. But I have not seen any will (not that I have seen many) that explicitly says they are setting up an entail, even of the form tail-male, using those words. Much more common the wills I have seen set up an implicit trust which is then described as a "tail-male entail". Have you seen many wills that use the word "entail" without further definition? Of course in medieval times, the entail was according to the laws of feudal inheritance so did not appear in the wills. -- Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org