This document records the final wishes of Hugh Sinclair, a Wainuiomata farmer, drafted in 1864. In keeping with legal and social conventions of the time, his wife Agnes did not receive ownership of his principal property or assets. Instead, she was granted an annual allowance of fifty pounds, paid in two instalments, along with a single payment of the same amount and the household effects. The substantial portion of Sinclair’s estate was left to his three children.
The transcription of the will is provided below:
This is the last will and testament of me Hugh Sinclair of the Wainuiomata District in the Province of Wellington Farmer. I give to my dear wife Agnes all the furniture linen china and other household goods now about the house in which I was residing at the time of my death and the sum of £50 fifty pounds for her immediate requirements. I give and bequeath to my dear wife an annuity of Fifty Pounds (£50) during her life to be charged upon and issuing out of my farm of leasehold and freehold situate in the said district and thirty acres in the Wainuiomata District aforesaid to be paid to her half yearly the first payment to be made six calendar months after my decease. And I empower her to distrain on the said land buildings and premises if the annuity shall be in arrear for twenty one days and to enter thereon when and as the rent has been paid to distrain the said premises if any part of it shall be in arrear for thirty days and apply the receipts to such annuity. I give to James Wallace and John Wood household furniture and other house clothing now upon those sections in the Wainuiomata District known here number five and thirty four with the houses and buildings thereon for five hundred years to commence from the day of my death In the further remainder unused and expectant and therefore with the said annuity to my said wife and also charged with an annuity of five pounds per annum payable to James Wallace of the City of Wellington Grocer and John Wood of the Wainuiomata District aforesaid from a secure several annuities. And I also subject as two copies part of Section number two to the aforesaid sum of my sister Isabella Sinclair.
