Frances, Peter, Dave
Thanks very much for your comments. Extremely useful.
I take it, then, that Sir T.J. may not even have known about the
lease. (I wonder if anyone considered the market potential of
compiling a national register of potential long-livers!)
I was misled, I think, by the fact that the lessee, in the 1830s, of
the adjacent farm (Rev. Robert Hopper Williamson) was the son and heir
of the first life (or perhaps the preceding life, in the light of what
you have now told me). His father (Robert Hopper Williamson snr) had
also leased other lands in the area and the son also inherited them.
Perhaps RHW snr had "backed himself" as a long-liver! If so, he
didn't make a bad choice, as he was nearing 80 when he died.
Thanks again.
Mike
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