Papers of the Wilkes Family

Deeds, wills, financial papers, correspondence of the Wilkes family of Sedgley, Staffordshire, c. 1556-1883. The collection includes family correspondence, 1786-1883, mostly addressed to members of the Wilkes family living at the Graveyard, Sedgley; household and business bills and receipts,1750-1882; Wilkes family wills, 1653-1852, including Richard Wilkes of Dudley Foreign, yeoman, 1663, John Wilkes of New Park, Dudley, yeoman, 1684, Elizabeth Wilkes of Sedgley, widow, 1780, John Wilkes of the Graveyard, Sedgley, victualler, 1807, and Francis Wilkes of Dudley, 1835; bonds, 1626-1773; title deeds relating to property in Sedgley and Dudley (including deeds for property at the Graveyard) and elsewhere, including Bridgnorth, Wednesbury and Kingswinford, 1566-1854. One deed of conveyance of 1783 includes a detailed inventory and valuation of the household goods of Elizabeth Wilkes, widow in a dwelling house at the Graveyard in the parish of Sedgley. The collection includes materials relating to families who intermarried with the Wilkes family, principally the Brecknell and Penn families

Administrative/Biographical History

Wilkes family of Sedgley, Staffordshire. The bulk of the collection relates to several generations of the Wilkes family who owned land and premises at the Graveyard in the parish of Sedgley. Some of the following individuals are represented in the papers: John Wilkes, a copy of whose will dated 1769 is in the collection and his wife, Elizabeth and some of their five children: Edward, Hannah, John, Francis and Henry; John Wilkes, who died in 1807 (a probate copy of his will is also in the collection) and his wife, Elizabeth and some of their five children: John, Mary, Hannah, Elizabeth and Edward.

Reference: Deposit information.

Access Conditions

Open. Access to all registered researchers.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was presented by School of Geography, University of Birmingham in 1991.

See full catalogue for more details.

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the University Archivist, Special Collections. Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Further deposits are not expected.