[Vellum Deed] Indenture between Totnes Corporation to Daniel Marriott, vintner ...18 Sept.[1719]. Signed by Mayor and Councillors. WITH town seal in good condition. See images.

Vellum Deed, c.70 x 55cm, folded as usual, signs of age but text clear and complete, with town seal with small cracks but intact. The reverse contains a memorandum signed by the Mayor and his Burgesses: Totnes Guildhall viiith Sept. 1719 | Memorandum that publish notice (according to the ancient agreement touching the worthy Burgesses of this Borough) having been duely made in the Parish Church of Totnes afores[sai]d on Sunday last immediately after the end of morning prayer for an assembly to be had of the Mayor & Burgesses of this Borough as on this daythe s[ai]d Mayor & Majority of the Masters & Counsellors & twenty Burgesses of the Borough Subscribing our names being now assembled together in [?] of those notice do hereby give our consent to this making & granting of the within written deed or conveyance as witness our hands. Followed by two marks and 20 individual signatures of the Mayor and Councillors. There is also a note on the affixing of the Common Seal of the Borough of Totnes to which other people's signatures are added to bear witness. Note: Under the charter granted by Queen Elizabeth, in 1596, the CORPORATION consisted of a mayor, a recorder, 14 burgher-masters, councillors, and an indefinite number of burgesses, including a select body, called 'the twenty-men' .... The Corporation of Totnes are trustees of various charities for the poor, and in 1719 sold about 50 small lots of property to pay off their debts. Some of this property belonged to, or was charged with annual payments for charitable uses, but the whole was sold as freehold, unencumbered estates, and for the indemnification of the purchasers and as security for the payment of the various charities in their hands, the Corporal vested with trustees their mills, fishery, manorial rights, wharfs, tolls, &c. The mills and fishery are let by the Corporation for about £190 per annum.