Subject: Indentures
Period: 1796 (dated)
Publication:
Color: Hand Color
Size:
20.3 x 12.4 inches
51.6 x 31.5 cm
This vellum indenture serves as testament to a one-year lease of a "messauage, burgage or tenement" in the amount of five shillings, signed February 24, 1796. The lease is between Edward Bignall, a brickmaker from Old Windsor in the County of Berkshire, and John Whooler, a baker from Egham in the County of Surrey. The indenture includes a red wax seal and a tax stamp.
The top of the indenture is cut in a jagged ("toothed") line, as was the common practice with indentures. The legal contract was duplicated on a single sheet, and then the copies were separated by a jagged edge, so that the two pieces could be fit together again to verify authenticity.
References:
Condition: A
Minor soiling.