Medieval & Tudor Kent P.C.C. & C.C.C. Wills Transcriptions

by

Leland Lewis Duncan (1862-1923)

Leland Lewis Duncan was born on 24 August 1862 at Lewisham and educated at the Colfe Grammar School there, from which he passed into the Civil Service, being appointed to the War Office in 1882, and there he remained until he retired in 1922 at the age of 60. He died at Lewisham on 26 December 1923, one year later. While in the War Office he steadily improved his position in the office, his services being recognized by an M.V.O. in 1902 and an O.B.E. later.

Throughout his life Duncan transcribed memorial inscriptions and wills throughout Kent into hundreds of notebooks. On his death many of his notebooks were deposited with the Kent Archaeological Society, of which he was a life-time member. Duncan's transcriptions were in a series of 'exercise books' and bound quarto books, numbered from 1 to 61. In 1934 Rev Bennitt, the Vicar of East Peckham, compiled an index by parish of all the transcriptions in Duncan's books no's 1 to 46 . This index, of over 1,622 entries, plus a further 566 entries from Books 47 to 61 have been typed up by Margaret Broomfield and Dawn Weeks and amended in places by Zena Bamping using Duncan's original books where they survive.

The Kent Archaeological Society has given permission for these transcriptions to be used to further genealogical research on this web site