18th century will is found in waste paper collection
It’s amazing what some people throw away.
Tonbridge Lions Club has been running a waste paper collection, gathering donations of newspapers and so on for recycling and raising money for good causes at the same time.
In among the papers, a sharp-eyed Lion, Ian Kury, spotted a piece of parchment.
Closer examination revealed it to be the will of Sir Sydney Stafford Smythe, who was born in 1705 and who died on November 2, 1778.
The six-page will and codicil is dated 18 May, 1733, which was the year of his marriage to Sarah Farnaby.
With a little research, the Lions discovered Sir Sydney was the son of Henry Smythe of Great Bounds Manor in Bidborough. Sir Sydney entered St John’s College, Cambridge, on July 1, 1721, at the age of just 16 and went on to have a distinguished career in law. He was the MP for East Grinstead between 1747 and 1750. He was to become a steward and a judge at the court of the Palace of Westminster. Two of his letters to the Duke of Newcastle are preserved in the British Museum, plus a pedigree of the Smythe family drawn up by the Kent historian Edward Hasted. Tonbridge School has a library named after Sir Thomas Smythe (1558-1625) who was the great-great-grandfather of Sir Sydney. Both Sir Sydney and his wife are buried at St John the Baptist Church in Suttonat-Hone, near Dartford.
Initially, the Lions had sought to return the will to Sir Sydney’s descendants, but he died without having children.
Instead it has been presented to the Tonbridge Historical Society, which will keep it safe in their archives at Tonbridge Castle.
George Buswell, chairman of the historical society, said: “We are delighted to put the will into our archives but first we will photograph and transcribe it to make it more readily accessible to researchers.”