These documents came to us via the Royal Commission on Historical manuscripts in 1982 and they were assigned the accession number 2078.
They were found amongst a small group of miscellaneous manuscripts in their strongroom. It is thought the documents had originally been acquired by a private depositer as part of a miscellaneous collection on the closure of the Walker art Gallery and that the gallery had acquired the
documents as part of a lot at an auction of pictures.
The Manor of Carswell is in the parish of Buckland in the County of Berkshire. It decended in the Fettiplace family until 1584 when it was sold by Bessel Fettiplace to John Southby senior. John Southby then died in 1599 and his heir was his grandson also John, but the manor passed to his second son Richard upon whom it had been settled in 1594 in a marriage settlement with Jane eldest daughter of Edward Keate of East lockinge. Richard died seised of the manor in 1604, leaving a son John aged eight. This John was J.P. for Berkshire, sheriff of the county in 1647/7 and M.P. for Berkshire in 1654-6. He died in 1683 and was succeeded by his son Richard. The estate then descended through the family via the Hayward who assumed the surname and arms of Hayward Southby. In 1899 the estate passed to the only surviving child Elizabeth Hayward Southby. She sold the manor in 1892 to Mr William Niven who had occupied it for two years as tenant and in 1902 the latter conveyed it to his son Mr W.E. Graham Niven. He sold it in 1912 to Mrs J.L. Butler.
The manorial records of the Southby family for the years 1413-1547 (Henry V-Henry VIII) are held at the Public Record Office, and estate records including title deeds of the family of East and West Ilsley for the 18th and 19th century are held at the Wiltshire Record Office.
Catalogued by Jeanette Grisold, June 1993.