Catalogue description PHELIPS MSS

This record is held by Somerset Heritage Centre (South West Heritage Trust)

Details of DD\PH
Reference: DD\PH
Title: PHELIPS MSS
Description:

Phelips MSS

 

The reason for the existence of the bulk of the deeds, etc., in the collection is generally self evident and the interest of the family, in terms of buying, selling, etc., is added wherever possible. In some cases, notably the Odcombe properties, documents in the solicitor's element, DD\PLE [DD\PH], have to be linked with documents elsewhere in the collection to explain the Phelips interest. The position of the deeds for Yeovilton, Limington, Northover, Ilchester and Tintinhull [DD\PH 52-60] is less immediately obvious, but the Yeovilton, Tintinhull and Limington properties are shown by the land tax assessments as definitely belonging to Thomas Lockyer (d.1785), whose daughter Elizabeth had married Edward Phelips (1753-91) in 1784, and the same source shows that he possessed unspecified estates in Northover and Ilchester. His daughter and her husband may have been involved in the business of disposing of these estates.

 

The bulk of the main deposit, catalogued as DD\PH 1-210, forms a conventional estate and family accumulation and the catalogue follows the normal lines on which such catalogues are developed in this office.

 

The remaining part of this section of the deposit, DD\PH 211-230, consists of the,largely artificial,groups of papers bound into volumes about 100 years ago, relating not only to personal affairs of various generations of the family, but also national and public local affairs of Sir Robert Phelips, M.P., and, to a much lesser extent, of his father Sir Edward. Most of the documents bearing on national events were catalogued in varying detail in the Appendix to the Third Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (1872), one copy of which [DD\PH 230] has been marked up with current catalogue marks. Individual documents in the remaining volumes have been separately listed under their own volume heading below.

 

Many of the documents are undated drafts by Sir Robert, whose handwriting, never easy to read, progressively deteriorated to near illegibility by the 1630's. Wherever possible tentative suggestions as to date, recipient and subject matter have been made, but clearly specialist knowledge and access to a wider range of reference books could enable many amendments to be made.

 

The survival of many of the 17th century papers is probably due to Sir Robert's grandson, the lawyer William Phelips, whose hand is responsible for many of the endorsements. These records, with the records of his own personal affairs, were probably inherited by the twice-married Edward Phelips, his nephew and executor.

 

The spelling of Phelips

 

The modern spelling in this form seems to have been adopted by Edward Phelips in the mid 18th century. Before that date the variations and combinations of vowels and letters 'l' and 'p' are endless. For convenience in this list the modern form has been used for the main branch of the family from c.1600 or the time of Sir Edward, while the spelling of the original document has been retained for the limited references to non-Montacute branches of the family.

Date: 13th cent - 20th cent
Arrangement:

PROPERTY TENURE

 

1-24 Documents illustrating title to main Somerset estates in Montacute, Odcombe and Yeovil.

 

25-35 Documents illustrating title to estates in Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Sock Dennis, North Petherton, Muchelney, Thorne Coffin, Chilthorne Domer, Preston Plucknett, East and West Lydford and High Ham.

 

36-51 Documents illustrating title to the Napier inheritance in Shepton Montague, Stoke Trister and Cucklington, Cannington and Stogursey and North Cheriton.

 

52-62 Deeds of properties in Ilchester, Northover, Limington, Tintinhull, Yeovilton, etc. (Lockyer properties).

 

63-104 Leases of properties within manors of Montacute, Odcombe, Shepton Montague, Stoke Trister, Bayford and Cucklington.

 

105-121 Deeds of properties in the counties of Dorset, Bucks., Cornwall, Devon, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Warwickshire, and Wiltshire, and in Ireland.

 

LITIGATION

 

122-137 Actions involving various branches of the Phelips family, arranged chronologically.

 

138-140 Actions not directly involving the Phelips family.

 

MANORIAL AND ESTATE ADMINISTRATION

 

141-157 Manorial procedure: court rolls and surveys for Montacute, Yeovil, Stoke Trister, etc., Shepton Montague, Muchelney, Stocklinch Magdalen, etc.

 

158-162 Estate maps and surveys.

 

163-168 Miscellaneous estate papers.

 

169-174 Estate (financial) records.

 

PERSONAL ESTATE AND INTERESTS

 

175-186 Records relating to personal estate: Phelips family.

 

187-193 Records relating to personal estate: related or associated families of Napier, Wyndham, Blake, Checke, Cary and Mildmay.

 

194-195 Testamentary matters.

 

196-204 Public and local office.

 

205-210 Miscellaneous personal and vocational interests.

 

211-219 Bound volumes of papers relating to national affairs.

 

220-223 Bound volumes of papers relating to public local affairs.

 

224-229 Bound volumes of papers relating to personal and family interests.

 

230 Marked copy of the Third Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts.

 

Accession C/709

 

PROPERTY TENURE

 

231-234 Deeds and litigation papers

 

MANORIAL AND ESTATE ADMINISTRATION

 

235-237 Survey of Montacute and estate and financial papers

 

PERSONAL ESTATE AND TESTAMENTARY MATTERS

 

238-242 Phelips family.

 

243-244 Other families.

 

245-247 Public and local office.

 

248 Miscellaneous personal interests

 

249-252 Printed material relating to the Phelips family and Montacute House.

 

253-255 Other printed material.

 

256-257 Mrs. Ingilby's transcript material.

 

Accession C/724 (part)

 

PROPERTY TENURE

 

[258-261] Settlements, etc., of estates previously acquired.

 

[262-289] Deeds of late acquisitions in Montacute, Odcombe, Cucklington and Stoke Trister.

 

[290-293] Exchanges of estates.

 

[294-298] Leases of Phelips properties.

 

ESTATE ADMINISTRATION

 

[299-307] Papers relating to the sales of Phelips properties

 

[308-311] Estate particulars.

 

[312-323] Estate management papers.

 

[324-327] Estate (financial) records.

 

PERSONAL ESTATE

 

[328-332] Settlements, etc., for Phelips and related families.

 

The numbering of the bound volumes: a check list

 

These volumes, when first deposited, were numbered 1-20; in this final list they have become DD\PH 211-230.

 

The following check list is for the benefit of students citing the earlier references.

 

Orig. number: 1 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 211

 

Orig. number: 2 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 224

 

Orig. number: 3 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 213

 

Orig. number: 4 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 216

 

Orig. number: 5 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 212

 

Orig. number: 6 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 225

 

Orig. number: 7 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 220

 

Orig. number: 8 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 214

 

Orig. number: 9 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 215

 

Orig. number: 10 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 226

 

Orig. number: 11 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 217

 

Orig. number: 12 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 227

 

Orig. number: 13 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 218

 

Orig. number: 14 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 221

 

Orig. number: 15 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 222

 

Orig. number: 16 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 223

 

Orig. number: 17 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 230

 

Orig. number: 18 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 219

 

Orig. number: 19 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 228

 

Orig. number: 20 Final cat. mark: DD\PH 229

Related material:

For surveys of Manor of Stoke Trister, Bayford and Cucklington and lands in Bridgwater, Cannington, Stogursey, Lyng, Huntspill and Cheriton, 1765 See DD\X\PHS 1.

 

For survey of lands in Montacute, Odcombe and Lufton ?1767, see DD\X\PLE 1.

Held by: Somerset Heritage Centre (South West Heritage Trust), not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Creator:

Phelips family of Montacute, Somerset

Physical description: 34 boxes
Immediate source of acquisition:

C/298,C/680, C/709

 

C/3115

 

S/701

 

G/205

 

G/560

Custodial history:

The Phelips MSS. here catalogued consist of the three following accessions:

 

(1) Accession C/298, being the major deposit of Phelips MSS. received from Montacute House on 15 March 1951 through the National Trust in the name of Commander H.Phelips, R.N., Castle Acre, Chilworth, Southampton, who was the grandson of the Rev.Richard C.Phelips, youngest brother of John Phelips of Montacute (d.1834) and presumably the senior male member of the family at the time of deposit. The accession is catalogued here as DD\PH 1-218, 220-227, 230.

 

(2) Accession C/680, being three additional bound volumes, part of the group deposited under (1), overlooked in 1951 and deposited direct by Commander Phelips on 31 December 1956, now catalogued as DD\PH 219, 228, 229.

 

(3) Accession C/709, the gift of Mrs.J.Ingilby of Leybrook Lodge, Ringwood, Hants., on 29 May 1957, now catalogued as DD\PH 230-257. Mrs.Ingilby (Marjorie Cecily Phelips) was the daughter of William R.Phelips, and of the last generation of the family to live at Montacute House. She worked extensively on the records, particularly the bound volumes of papers and the deposit consists largely of her typescript and manuscript transcripts, associated printed material relating to the House and a small element of original documents which must originally have formed part of (1).

 

To this catalogue has been added:

 

(4) A similar catalogue of the section of the deposit made by Messrs. Poole, Solicitors, of South Petherton on 17 July 1957, as part of Accession C/724, which relates to the management of the Phelips estates. The documents themselves remain stored as DD\PLE with the remainder of the Poole collection, but for present purposes have been given a secondary Phelips reference and are here listed as [DD\PH 258-332]. Links between this section and the family deposits have been noted by cross-references in the text.

Subjects:
  • Napier family, baronets, of Middle Marsh Hall, Dorset
  • Somerset
Administrative / biographical background:

The Phelips family and Montacute: the evidence of surviving records.

 

The family is to be found at Montacute by at least 1479, when a grant of a burgage property was made to Thomas Phelipp [see DD\PH 5]. This may well be the period of its first settlement there, for Thomas, the father of Sir Edward Phelips, M.P., writing in 1588 when a very old man to another son speaks of 'our poor house of Montacute, grown from two small burgages bought by thy great grandfather' [spelling modernized; DD\PH 224/4]. Unhappily, there are no records at all of the family in the intervening century to chronicle the development of the family fortunes and no mention of the building of Montacute House itself. The earliest deeds of the main estate [DD\PH 1], in fact, date only from 1632, at which date they still talk of the new house and the site of the old. The few documents surviving for the late 16th century belong to the last months of Thomas's life. They include several rambling and often unintelligible letters written by him, but there are clear indications of his disaffection for and disagreements with his eldest son, and the quarrels between his sons which led to the inheritance of Montacute by his 4th and youngest son, (Sir) Edward, later Speaker and Attorney-General. There are also occasional letters to (Sir) Edward on the subject and his self-justification [see in particular DD\PH 224/1, 3-5, 228/13, 14 and 229/1]. It seems highly probable that he began to build after his inheritance, if only from the negative evidence that Thomas would have made his part clear if he had been the builder.

 

The decade, 1730-40, produced further family disagreements and protracted negotiations about entitlement to shares of the estate. The trouble stemmed from Sir Edward Phelips who died in 1699 leaving a widow and three daughters and a will which appears to have left the family in doubt as to what passed to the eldest daughter and what to the three sisters in common. Matters were suspended for 30 years after the death of Sir Edward because his widow did not die until 1728 and the situation had been complicated in the meantime by the marriage of Edward Phelips, a nephew of Sir Edward, firstly to his eldest cousin, Ann, by whom he had two daughters, Ann and Bridget, and secondly after his wife's death to her sister, Elizabeth, by whom he had a son, Edward (with other children). In 1734 Elizabeth bought from her niece and stepdaughter Bridget, her half-share of her mother's interest in the Montacute estate, presumably believing that the main estate had been devised originally to her elder sister. Deeds, litigation papers and correspondence have survived bearing on this subject in DD\PH 2, 129, 224, 229, but the full story is not clear and would require more prolonged investigation. Eventually, however, Elizabeth bought out her other niece's share in 1740 on similar terms and her youngest sister Edith was persuaded to release any interest she might have had in a one third share of the estate. Thus, on the death of Elizabeth, the bulk of the family's estates were re-united in the hands of her son, Edward. Subsequently, the share of his aunt, Edith, who married Carew Hervey Mildmay, returned to the main estate under the terms of her will [see DD\PH 27 and 224/114].

 

The Napier inheritance.

 

A more important windfall was the Napier interest, which came to the same Edward Phelips from the family of his half-sister, Bridget, who had married (Sir) Gerard Napier. Edward records the inheritance as follows in his autobiography [DD\PH 224/114] under 1765: 'January 25 died at Critchil [Critchell More, Dorset] my much lamented poor nephew Sir Gerrard Napier, bart. ..... I found by his will he had been so good to leave me all his estate in Somerset, which turned out to be Shepton Montacute, Cucklington, Stoke [Trister] and Bayford, North Cheriton, Wooleston [in Stogursey], Cannington, and some fields in Lyng and Bridgwater'. Of these estates, the manors of Shepton Montague and Cucklington, Stoke Trister and Bayford came to the Napier family from Sir Hugh Wyndham of Silton, one of whose daughters and co-heiresses had married Sir Nathaniel Napier, great grandfather of Sir Gerard; (Sir) Hugh had acquired the estates in 1651 and 1652 [see DD\PH 36, 41]. The Cannington, etc., property had reached the Napier family through the marriage of an earlier Sir Gerard with Margaret Colles, which happened in or before 1656 [DD\PH 43] and the North Cheriton property had been mortgaged to (Sir) Gerard Napier in 1741 and possibly bought outright thereafter by him, although no deeds of such a purchase survive here.

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