Record series
Wills and Probate and Administration Files
VPRS 7592
1841 - 1853
Open
North Melbourne
Agencies
This record series was created by:
Master in Equity, Supreme Court (also known as Master in Equity and Lunacy 1867-1923) ( VA2624 ): 1852 - 1853
Agencies responsible for this record series: Registrar of Probates, Supreme Court ( VA 2620 ): 1960 - present
Date Range
Series date range: 1841 - 1853
Series in custody:
1841 - 1853
Contents in custody:
1841 - 1853
Function / Content
This series is a consolidation of the Wills and Probate and Administration papers held by the Registrar of Probates. The series is a concurrent series with VPRS 28 Probate and Administration Files and contains documents that were retained by the Probate Office after the initial transfer of VPRS 28 in 1969. When VPRS 7592/P1 was transferred in 1989, papers in VPRS 28 that were already held at the Public Record Office Victoria were not interfiled. Therefore researchers may find papers relating to a particular estate in both VPRS 7592/P1 and in VPRS 28. For more information see VPRS 28 Probate and Administration Files and VPRS 7591 Wills.The series also includes copies of the wills which had originally been kept separately but were interfiled by the agency in the 1970's or 1980's. They relate to Probate Series 'A' and 'B' in VPRS 28. As the date of this consolidation is unknown the series date range been determined by the date of its contents.
Files in this series include the following documents that were required to be lodged with the Registrar of Probate prior to the making of a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration to be granted:
- Copy of advertisement from a daily newspaper indicating the intention to apply for Probate after 14 days
- Affidavit in support of the application sworn by the executors (the original will may be attached as an exhibit)
- Affidavit of publication and searches (this is usually sworn by the solicitors clerk); a copy of the advertisement is usually set out in the affidavit
- Inventory detailing the assets in Victoria
- Praecipe (this summarises the particulars of the application)
- Order for Probate
- Probate Parchment
The affidavits are sworn before a Commissioner of the Supreme Court. When the Probate is granted the date is stamped on the document.
State Probate Duty was abolished in January 1984 for deaths after that date. Prior to this time, an executor was obliged to provide details of an estate's assets within 3 months of the death of the deceased.
How to use the records
These files can be searched by name of the deceased, date of death, date of grant, occupation of the deceased and location.Recordkeeping system
These files are arranged in a sequential numbering system made up of series 'A' and series 'B'. Series 'A' has sequential numbering from 1 to 412 while Series 'B' has sequential numbering from 1 to 210. For example, A/121 is the 121st file in series 'A'. Further documents from these files may be found in VPRS 28 and VPRS 7591.Copies of wills relating to these numbers are found in volumes A and B respectively of VPRS 27 Transcriptions of Wills [also known as Register of Wills].
It is unknown if these files were controlled by a register, however an index was created at some point. A microform copy of this index can be found in VPRS 3340 Index to Probates and Administrations [Microform].
