Anchor Brewery, Southwark, Surrey, England

Henry Thrale drafted his final will on 17 March 1781 and passed away just 18 days later on 4 April.

The whole original will is here. However, a summary is given below.

Executors and trustees

He appointed his wife Hester Lynch Thrale as executor alongside Samuel Johnson, John Cator, Jeremiah Crutchley and Henry Smith.

The four male executors—without Hester—were also appointed as trustees to manage or sell the brewery and hold funds for his daughters until they reached 21 years old or were married. The four male trustees each received £200 for their efforts.

The will also named Ann Thorp as the sole executrix and Henry's spinster sister, yet she appears in neither the will nor family records. This is likely a clerical error.

The solicitor, Mr Townsend, gained a £100 annual annuity, explicitly free of taxes—the only such tax-exempt legacy, perhaps a crafty perk of his role in drafting the will?

Brewery sale

The brewery, its tied properties (including Brewery House and The Anchor Inn), stock and all undisposed residue passed to trustees to run or sell. Henry Smith superintended management until the sale. Clerk Mr John Perkins received £1,000 and a strong recommendation that he should continue in that role.

It was quickly decided that the brewery and all connected parts should be sold, due to the lack of a male heir to run the business. On 31 May 1781—just seven weeks after Henry's death—it was sold for the then princely sum of £135,000.

When challenged about the value of the business by the wary bankers, Dr. Samuel Johnson famously replied …

We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.Dr. Samuel Johnson. May 1781.

Sale proceeds first covered the £55,000 specifics (£25,000 daughters' trusts and £30,000 wife's interest), leaving £80,000 as true residue for division per the will's terms. With no sons, it went equally to the daughters at age 21 or marriage (£16,000 each outright, supplanting their prior £5,000 portions as intended).

Hester held her £30,000 interest until she died in 1821, after which it merged into the residue and was divided equally among the four surviving daughters (£7,500 each): Hester Maria (Viscountess Keith), Susannah (Lady Rothes), Sophia (Mrs Mostyn) and Cecilia (Mrs Pennington). Henrietta Sophia had died in childhood without issue.

Mistakenly believing child maintenance should be paid to her after the sale of the brewery, Hester wrote …

See Page 41 of this Volume & admire at the Compiler’s Folly— I have got an Extract of Mr Thrale’s Will at last, & find out that for the 150£ a piece of his Daughters to be annually paid till they attain the Age of 15. and for the 200£ o’Year a piece from that Age till the Day they become 21. nobody has a Right to receive it except myself—nor am I accountable to any Person whatever for what I please to do with it—Yet have I tacitly suffered them & their Other Guardians to manage it how they thought fit, and Mr Cator had the Assurance to advise me a Twelvemonth ago in Hanover Square, to take 50£ o’Year for Cecilia’s’ Maintenance, if I would have her with me was the Phrase; & plague him no more about the Bills, which were enormous he said,—in good Time! because they amounted to 80£. One could not credit such Usage, was it related of another—& such Submission to ill Usage is I believe wholly unexampled. but Charity seeketh not her own.Hester Lynch Thrale, 3 January 1791.

Provisions for his widow

Hester became the guardian of all the children.

Henry left Streatham Park and Brighthelmstone to his wife for life, with the contents of both houses hers unconditionally, including all Sir Joshua Reynolds’s paintings.

He also gave her outright all furniture, plate, linen, books, china, pictures and household goods at the brewery house in Southwark, plus £500 immediately for mourning clothes, free coals, candles and beer for the family.

From brewery profits, briefly before sale, Hester received £2,000 p.a. pro-rata (in place of her marriage settlement rights).

Henry's will also provided that from the brewery sale proceeds, she should receive a life interest on £30,000 invested in securities.

1763 marriage settlement

Hester's 1763 marriage settlement entitled her to a £13,400 lump sum on Henry's death.

John Cator, as executor, either through oversight or—as Hester later believed—deliberately, failed to pay the £13,400 marriage settlement legacy.

Mr Cator writes me word at last at Michaelmas we shall not have a Debt in the World—so young Ladies are paid; & I am discharged from an Obligation wch Mr Crutcheley told me was very great, tho’ not a Jew in the Alley would have refused me the Money at the same Price—he told me so when they were in the Room too I remember, & they took Care never to forget it while I lived with them at Bath—& try’d to save Money to get rid of the Incumbrance—but Lady Salusbury’s¹ cruel & unjust Rapacity, insisting on payment when such was the Situation of Public Affairs Novr 1782 that no Cash could be borrow’d without Land Security, & scarcely with it: Mr Crutcheley’s unmerited Roughness towards me, insisting not only on five per Cent to the Misses, but on my paying 800£ of the principal the 1st Year, a Thing scarcely possible; his Censures of me afterwards for not living grand enough, when he himself had cramped my Power of living better; he and Cator all the Time tacitly agreeing to keep me ignorant of my Claim to no less than thirteen Thousand Pounds, settled on me at marriage wch I had forgot—have much sour’d my Temper towards my Daughters Guardians: who could not urge in Defence of their Conduct my future Marriage, because Crutcheley never heard of any such thing till the Janry after, when he came to me open mouthed about it, & said he had heard on’t by Miracle; and Cator had not an Idea of the sort, till Mr. Piozzi arrived at Dover in June² 84. & I wrote a circular Letter to each of my kind Coadjutors—How glad I am now that all debts are discharged however! & that I paid the Attorney’s Bill even before I married Mr Piozzi—it is a comfort to me to think on’t to be sure. Now let the Mortgage Deeds be destroyed, and these Mortifications be forgotten for ever.—Hester Lynch Thrale, Milan, 24 August 1786.

In late 1786 this was settled by Court in Hester's favour in the case Thrale v. Cator in Chancery (1786), which awarded her £13,400 plus interest and costs.

Hester also found fault later with the guardians for concealing her sole authority to receive and utilise the girls’ maintenance payments.

Provisions for his children

Each of his five daughters—Hester Maria, Susannah Arabella, Sophia, Cecilia Margaret and Henrietta Sophia—received £5,000 invested in securities from the brewing trade proceeds as a dedicated £25,000 trust fund. From age 21 or upon marriage with their mother's consent, a daughter enjoyed the interest for life (protected from any husband's debts or control), yielding around £200–£250 annually at typical 4–5% rates. At her death, the life interest ended, and the £5,000 capital passed outright to her children (vesting at 21 or marriage) or rejoined the residue if childless.

Beyond this, the daughters received equal shares of the £80,000 residue (£16,000 each outright at age 21 or marriage, making £21,000 total per daughter, including the £5,000 portion). Their mother and the executors were named as joint guardians, but the will requested in addition that all the daughters be made wards in Chancery.

Crowmarsh, the Oxfordshire estate, was willed to the eldest child Hester Maria Thrale. This property had, however, by the terms of the Thrales’ marriage settlement been set aside for an annual payment to Mrs Thrale of £200 during Mr Thrale’s life, and £400 after his death. This triggered an acrimonious Court case between Hester and her eldest child.

The only known grandchild, Georgina Augusta Henrietta Keith (born 1809 to Hester Maria Thrale, died 1892), thus inherited her mother's share of the residue, including any unspent portions from the daughters' £5,000 trusts.

Footnotes

1. It is not clear to whom this refers. It was not Hester’s mother, as she had died 10 years earlier.↩︎
2. 17 June 1784.↩︎