The Estate Plan That Amazed Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Not long after Christmas, three and a half centuries ago, Royal Navy bureaucrat and diarist extraordinary Samuel Pepys paid a call on Lord Crew. There he heard a remarkable story of inheritance.

An old friend had left Lord Crew's brother, Mr. Nathaniel Crew, an estate paying 600-700 pounds per  annum. Surely a worthy income in those days.

But Mr. Crew's good fortune had not come by bequest or devise. The recently deceased friend had left no will.

Nathaniel Crew

Rather, the amazed Pepys reports, the friend "had, above ten years since, made over his estate to this Mr. Crew, to him and his heirs for ever, and given Mr. Crew the keeping of the deeds in his own hand all this time; by which, if he would, he might have taken present possession of the estate…."

"This is as great an act of confident friendship," writes Pepys, "as this latter age, I believe, can shew."

Oddly, in his portrait the trustworthy Nathaniel looks a bit shifty. In reality he went on to become one of the Church of England's longest serving bishops.