Britain posts 41 million wills, including Orwell, Princess Diana’s

Some 41 million British wills dating back to 1858, including those of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana, were made available in an online database Saturday. The government’s full archive of wills from England and Wales, stretching back more than 150 years, has been put on the probatesearch.service.gov.uk website. It includes the wills of World War II prime minister Churchill; novelist Charles Dickens; Diana, princess of Wales; children’s writer A. A. Milne; code-breaker Alan Turing; writer George Orwell and author Beatrix Potter.

This fascinating project provides us with insights into the ordinary and extraordinary people who helped shape this country, and the rest of the world.

Courts Minister Shailesh Vara

The digital copies of the wills cost $15.50 but basic details for some of them are available online. Previously the archives had only been publicly available to search in person. When Dickens died in 1870 he left a will written in cursive script that laid out highly specific directions for his funeral. “I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner,” he wrote, adding that mourners must not wear scarves, cloaks, long hatbands, “or other such revolting absurdity”. Orwell, who died in 1950, insisted that his archive of papers be preserved, while economist John Maynard Keynes, who died four years earlier, wanted most of his papers destroyed. Though the archive has been converted into digital format, the original paper records will still be kept in a temperature-controlled environment.

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