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I have quite a lot of information about the Angel will - including an article published about it in about 1905. John Angel was reputed in my family to be a descendant of another John Angel who had been vintner to Charles II at Windsor Castle (gaining his fortune by giving short measures?). His ?grandson's complex will was because he wanted to leave money to the members of the family that had been split by the Civil War. Some of his fortune had come from the finances of a Justinian Angel who raised monies to build lighthouses including the Spurnhead Light off the Humber (near the present day city of Hull on the east coast of UK). He had been receiving a farthing (1/4 of an old penny)from the master of every ship that past the light - not much but there was a lot of shipping up and down the east coast at the time. However, the Humber estuary was continually silting up and the mariners no longer got any advantage from the light. It took an act of Parliament to disenfranchise John Angel from this regular income and I believed this was the last Act of Parliament to name a specific person. John was not exactly thrilled by this lost of income and became a very embittered old man. There is a story that he caught a small boy stealing apples from his orchard and boxed the child's ears. Two weeks later the child took ill of a fever and died. John was then hauled before the local Assizes and accused of murder. The jury found him guilty but the judge reverse the verdict. After which John disppeared and possibly moved to West Wales. My family appeared in the village of Lawrenny (Pembrokeshire, West Wales - now Dyfed)when a William Angel suddenly appeared there in 1824 living at Rose Cottage. One executor of John Angel Will was the bishop of St Davids (very close to Lawrenny),and the hope was that my family could prove a connection, but too much cheating had gone on altering the parish records. Someone was researching the will 20 years ago and reckoned that several murders had taken place removing other claimants. The Balfour Brownes only got some of the money and the rest remained in chancery, no doubt it helped to clear a fragment of the British National Debt! According to my Grandmother, the will was one of the examples used by Charles Dickens as a basis for Bleak House (well it makes a good story!). I will be happy to send anyone copies of what information I have.
Martin Angel
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