| Content Description | For more detailed descriptions see sections Pl F5/1-17 below.
As is clear from the material in sections Pl F2 and Pl F3, the marriage of the 2nd Duke and Duchess of Portland brought together two great estates, and two great sets of debts. This section concerns the settlement of those estates and the management of those debts in the time of the 3rd Duke of Portland, whose brother, Lord Edward Bentinck, and whose political activities and associations (Viscount Torrington, Chase Price, etc.) added to the burden.
Estate Acts enabled the sale of the Hampshire estates to be effected and permitted sales in Northumberland and Derbyshire (see Pl E11 for actual Northumberland sales). The 'paternal' Bentinck estates of the 3rd Duke were placed in a trust for sale in 1777 (and largely disposed of in his lifetime, or, in the case of Bulstrode in Buckinghamshire, immediately after his death) as part of a general resettling of the maternal and paternal estates envisaged in the Duke's marriage settlement (Pl F5/1/5) to take place after the death of his mother, but put into effect in 1776-77 with her consent. Charges were removed from the paternal estates and placed on the maternal ones; this facilitated the sale of the paternal estates and (ad interim) the raising of fresh money on mortgages of them (particularly Soho).
Sections Pl F5/1-6 relate to the 'paternal' estates, Pl F5/7-11 to the 'maternal' estates. Pl F5/12, drafts and copies, is divided internally along the same lines. Pl F5/13 relates to the will and estate of the 3rd Duke. Pl F5/14-17 are miscellaneous.
The 'paternal' material is divided between settlements and trust deeds, with the related appointments of receivers (Pl F5/1); mortgage of Soho (Pl F5/2); mortgages of Buckinghamshire and monies raised from the sales in Hampshire (Pl F5/3); the debts of the 3rd Duke coming into the 1777 trust - securities issued, bonds, annuities, etc. (Pl F5/4); trust accounts etc. (Pl F5/5); and related litigation (Pl F5/6).
The 'maternal' material is similarly divided between settlements (Pl F5/7); mortgages on the Northumberland estates (Pl F5/8); mortgages on the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire estates, and related litigation (Pl F5/9); mortgages of other maternal estates (Marylebone) and of maternal estates in general, also other debts of the 3rd Duke of Portland outwith the scope of the 1777 trust (Pl F5/10); maternal (1782) trust accounts etc. (Pl F5/11). There is an overlap as to mortgages with material in Pl F3 - money raised in 1719, after various assignments, might not be repaid until late in the century, and only then by raising fresh sums of money from different people charged on different property. |