The Will of John Farrer died 1817

THE WILL OF JOHN FARRER DIED 1817

In the last post I told of the possibility that all we knew about the Farrer Family prior to Benjamin may be wrong due to such a small thing as a date of death on a hand written family tree.
In order to prove either way if this date of death was indeed the death of OUR John Farrer ( father of  Benjamin I needed to order a copy of his will.
I received a  scanned copy of the will this week and within minutes it was obvious that in fact this John Farrer who died in 1817 was in fact genuinely OUR John.
His Will makes interesting reading .
He was a landlord and also owned property in several towns, Bretherton, Knottingly, Orchard Head, Pontefract and had leasehold shops and dwellinghouses in Pontefract. In his will he left it all except the shop and stock and tools of trade and the dwellinghouses attached to his wife Ann, who was also sole executor of the will.  The shop etc was to be split between Benjamin and Joshua both of whom had carried on the same trade as their father being clock and watch makers.
To his son William he left a public house known as the Wellingtons Inn .
To his daughters he left a legacy of the interest to be paid on a principal sum of 400 pounds each, and on the death of his 2 daughters (Mary Ann and Catherine) the principal amounts of 400 pounds would be divided amongst their children.

After the death of his wife Ann all the other property was left to Wililam, Joshua and Benjamin.
John was quite specific in his wishes.

Unfortunately nothing in the will indicates the maiden name of his wife Ann nor his parentage so this remains a bit of a mystery.
Every Farrer tree I have found online has the same incorrect information that we previously had on ours so finding the truth may take some time.
A Farrer relative I have communicated with has a portrait of a John Farrer. I now believe this man could be this John Farrer (we previously thought he might be from a later generation (son of Benjamin) but looking at the clothing in the portrait its entirely possible if not likely that this is John Farrer Grandfather of Ellen Middlebrook