FN1246-1268

Transcript Books

1740 - 1774

From: 1740 To: 1774

These books of transcripts are valuable because in many cases they give transcripts or summaries of documents which have not survived. The books are quarto, 230 pages, originally parchment bound. They appear to have been made by Luke Francklin between 1740 and 1774. The reason appears to be as follows. The younger (Norfolk) branch of the family succeeded to the estate on the death of Sir John Francklin. John Francklin, who married Ann Foster of Great Barford, died young in 1740, leaving a little son of 4 years old. John's brother Luke, then 33, appears to have brought up and acted as guardian to his orphan nephew. Confronted with a great mass of documents, he tried to sort them out; and he copied them into these volumes, presumeably for readier reference. Except for a very few later additions, e.g. to the pedigree in FN 1249, the volumes are in the same hand throughout, which may be compared with Luke's signature on deeds, and with the note 'copied by L. Francklin', e.g. FN 1265, pages 1173 and 1235. Two points are to be borne in mind in following Luke Francklin's system. 1. He appears to have tackled one box or container at a time, and to have sorted the contents into chronological order, but not according to the different estates. Thus any one of his series, while in fairly good chronological order, will refer to several different properties; and documents relating to the same property in another box are numbered in another series. 2. He numbered each of his series from 1 onwards, with no distinguishing mark. Thus it has been thought advisable for readier reference in the present catalogue to add a letter to each of his main series: Land estate P 1 - 168 Q 1 - 116 R 1 - 206 S 1 - 30 Miscellaneous Writings A 1 - 153 B 1 - 50 C 1 - 257 Navigation N 1 - 208 The reference numbers for the transcripts are given throughout the catalogue under 'Related object'; and where the original document has perished the volume reference is given so that the transcript may be found. This has been done in all cases up to 1600; and in some cases after that. It seems likley that when Luke Francklin had finished his main series, he realised the difficulty of finding particular subjects in the volumes. Thus numbers FN 1249 and 1250 are a kind of subject index, and repeat transcripts already made in Land Estate series P, Q, R and S.

Many of the documents were fragile and damaged by damp. Repairs started in 1948 and some have yet to be completed; at least some items are currently unfit for production.

sub-fonds

Francklin, Luke,
Francklin, John,
Francklin, Ann,
Foster, Ann