Granting of Administration

[DBCoup]

In his book on the Great Synagogue Cecil Roth writes ...
"The exact date of Aaron Hart's death is not on record. He was alive when Moses Hart made his will on April 2nd, 1756, but on August 13th of the same year administration of his estate was granted to his grand-daughter, Billah Moses”.

Presumably this means that, somewhere, there must be a document granting such administration. How do I go about locating this document, assuming it exists which I assume it must else how would Roth have been able to place such a precise date on the event?
Any assistance welcomed
thanks
daryl
ps Aaron Hart's death was recorded in the newspaper (in a monthly collection of deaths, alas no dates) on 1 May 1756 simply as "The Rev. and most Learned Rabbi Aaron Hart“ so his death is now narrowed down to April 1756.

[Kerrywood]

Probate records before 1858 (both wills and administrations) were handled by the church courts, according to where the estate was located.

Did Aaron HART live and die in London? If so, there is a good chance the grant was made by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC), as many Jewish probate records went through that court.

PCC administrations are held at the National Archives (class PROB 6) and are not online, nor even indexed online. There is some indexing available at Kew, but it can be quite difficult to find these grants, and it may not be worth the search for the limited amount of information they contain. (Please see the description on the above catalogue link.)

However, Roth may have got his information from a published source, rather than from personal research at Kew. A. P. Arnold's Anglo-Jewish wills & letters of administration (registered at the Principal Probate Registry), published by the Jewish Historical Society of England (1949), might be worth a look. There's a copy in the Society of Genealogists' library in London. You might perhaps want to start by asking the SoG library staff if they can find a reference to the administration grant in that publication?
www.
sog.org.uk/library/searches.shtml

Otherwise, I'm afraid you will have to find someone with a lot of time to spare who can visit Kew and search on your behalf, or engage a researcher.

[DBCoup]

Many thanks Kerrywood, Several avenues to explore here.
daryl

[DBCoup]

However, Roth may have got his information from a published source, rather than from personal research at Kew. A. P. Arnold's Anglo-Jewish wills & letters of administration (registered at the Principal Probate Registry), published by the Jewish Historical Society of England (1949), might be worth a look.

I have accessed this publication and it has
"Hart, Aaron. London. 1756. July A"
I sent in a query to the National Archives asking if "1756 July A" was enough for them to locate the document in order to give me a quote for obtaining a copy. I followed their advice (that I should try with what I had) and submitted a request for a quote, giving the above information, but it came back as insufficient information from which to provide a quote.
So it looks like I will have to resort to using a researcher to locate enough information for me to obtain a quote.
On a related manner I have obtained digital copies of the legal machinations that resulted from the estate of the intestate Aaron Hart and there are small areas where the document was creased and therefore did not show up on the image - another reason for employing a researcher. Can anyone recommend a researcher (PM of course)?

Thanks
daryl

[Peter Goodey]

So it looks like I will have to resort to using a researcher to locate enough information for me to obtain a quote.

National Archives have a standard fee for searching PROB 12 which you might want to consider.

See Search No. 2 in this document