| Description | Records deposited on 9th November, 1959, by Messrs. Heath and Blenkinsop of Warwick, Solicitors. The records are chiefly those of the original firm of Thomas Heath (later Thomas Heath and Richard Child Heath). Thomas Heath was the son of Matthew Heath, a canal carrier of Stourport, Worcs; a number of Heath family records are included in the collection. There are also many documents from the firm of Chadwick and Son, which was absorbed by Heath and Blenkinsop c. 1930. This firm was known as Newsam and Chadwick until the resignation of Philip William Newsam in 1873.
Most of the records listed here are deeds of title or other legal papers. There are also a large number of documents connected with the shrievalty: the office of Under-Sheriff for the County of Warwick was held by members of the firm of Heath and Blenkinsop for many years in both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.
Besides numerous individual deeds and bundles found loose, some of the larger individual accumulations were found to have been kept separately in wooden or tin boxes. The papers of T. T. Knight of Milverton, the Revd. Clement Newsam of Harbury, the Palmer and Watts families of Harbury, John Rich of Bearley, and General George Scott of Wolston, were stored in this way. Other boxes contained the deeds of the Duke of Ancaster's estates in Lincolnshire bequeathed to Bertie Greatheed, the deeds for land purchased for the Rugby-Leamington railway, and a minute book, etc., of the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal Co. There were also two boxes containing single documents and small bundles originating from the firm of Chadwick and Son, who had allowed them to accumulate in date order: these boxes were labelled "Single Deeds" and "Wills" respectively, although the second box was found to contain much else besides wills and releases of executors. |