CAUTION: Researching ancestors in Ireland presents far greater difficulties than researching elsewhere in the British Isles or in America:-

(a) CIVIL REGISTRATION: Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths did not start until 1864 (though Roman Catholic marriages were registered from 1849).

(b) CENSUS RETURNS: No census returns are available before 1901. The initial census returns of 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 were largely destroyed by fire at the Irish Public Record Office during the uprisings in 1922. Those for 1861 and 1871 had been destroyed earlier by the government. And no censuses were taken in 1881 or 1891,

(c) WILLS AND ADMONS: All the originals at the Irish Public Record Office were destroyed by the same fire in 1922, along with almost all the Will and Grant Books into which they had been transcribed,

(d) PARISH REGISTERS: The majority of Catholic parish registers did not begin until the early nineteenth century. Those in the most densely populated North and West often do not start until the mid, or the late, nineteenth century.

The following is based on extracts from the History sections of the Inner Temple and Middle Temple web sites.

The four Inns of Court were established by the middle of the 14th century on the site of the Temple Church by the Thames which had been in the possession of the Knights Templar for some 150 years. After the abolition of the Knights Templar in 1312, and the replacement of priestly lawyers by a lay profession, lawyers came to occupy the Temple site and buildings. They formed themselves initially into two societies, the Inner Temple and Middle Temple, and came to include Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn as well. They were organised on the same basis as the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, offering accommodation to practitioners of the law and their students and facilities for education and dining, and the term 'Inns of Court' seems to have been adopted on account of the hospitality offered to those associated with the law courts.

They called qualified practitioners to the Bar, as barristers with a monopoly to plead in the central law courts. They also educated the sons of the nobility and country gentry, as well as others who would require some knowledge of the law in their lives. The Inns retained close contacts with the Court and with government and its administration. At times in the 18th century as many entrants to the Inn gave addresses in Ireland as gave English ones.

	John MILLER, later to become Sir John RIGGS MILLER, was admitted to the Middle Temple on 1AUG1757.[S49]
	John Edward RIGGS MILLER became a barrister-at-law at Lincoln's Inn in 1794.[S117]

Ancestors of Sir John RIGGS MILLER's wife, Anna, had previously been admitted to the Middle Temple or to the Inner Temple.

The following entries appear in the Cambridge Bibliography Of English Literature:[S15]

1. Poetical Amusements at a villa near Bath:
   Bath 1775, 4 vols London and Bath 1776-81.
   Collected by Lady Miller, with her contributions.
2. Letters from Italy, by an English woman:
   3 vols 1776-7, 2 vols 1777, 3 vols Dublin 1776.
3. On novelty and on trifles and triflers:
   poetical amusements at a villa near Bath, Bath 1778.

Hazelgrove R.A. Lady Miller and the Batheaston literary circle:
New Haven 1927.

Letters from Italy, describing the manners, customs, antiquities, paintings: in 1770 and 1771, 1776, 2vols 1776(rev)

The following has been extracted from the Notes and Queries published in 1865 [S6] (I have broken the text down into paragraphs, and added the block capitals, to make it easier to read):

QUERY: LADY MILLER, of Batheaston, wife of SIR JOHN MILLER, Bart, and author of Letters from Italy, who died, June 24, 1781, aet forty-one ... What was her Christian name? If Lowndes (ed.Bohn, 1551)(sic) is to be relied on, it began with M. I should also like to have some information as to her parentage. Absurdly enough her Christian name does not appear on the epitaph to her memory in Bath Abbey church.

S.Y.R.

ANSWER: [ LADY MILLER's Christian name was Anna. She was the only daughter of EDWARD RIGGS, Esq., and sole heiress to her grandfather, the Right Honourable EDWARD RIGGS, M.P., and a commissioner of the revenue in Ireland. She was married to Capt. JOHN MILLER, of Bellicasey, co. Clare, in the year 1765,

In 1775, Horace WALPOLE, writing to the Hon. Mr. CONWAY, says, "Ten years ago there lived a Madame RIGGS, an old rough humourist, who passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to a Captain MILLER, full of good-natured officiousness ... They ran out their fortune, and all went to France to repair it. In France the mother was left with the grandchildren, while the fond pair resorted to Italy. Thence they returned, her head turned with France and bout-rimés; his, with virtú. They have instituted a poetic academy at Bath-Easton, give out subjects, and distribute prizes; publish the various prize verses, and make themselves completely ridiculous; which is a pity, as they are good-natured, well-meaning people." - Walpole's Letters, ed.1857, v.20; vi.170, 332. ]

The following has been extracted from the Notes and Queries published in 1858 [S5] (I have broken the text down into paragraphs, and added the block capitals, to make it easier to read):

QUERY: The Bath-Easton Vase - Can any reader of "N. & Q." supply any authentic information relative to SIR JOHN and LADY MILLER, the founders of the Poetical Society at Bath-Easton, near Bath; and particularly respecting the disposal of the vase after Lady M's death, and its present location?

F. K.

ANSWER: [ The antique vase above alluded to was dug up at Frescati, in the year 1759; and was purchased by SIR JOHN and LADY MILLER, whilst on their travels in Italy, 1770-71. Specimens of Etruscan art were then much more rare than now, and this example was so highly prized by its fortunate possessors that, on their return home, they converted their beautiful villa near Bath into a temple of Apollo. LADY (then Mrs.) MILLER was made the high-priestess, and the vase the shrine of the deity. "The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease," and the fashionable visitors to the city of the West, were invited, during the Bath season, to a fortnightly dies festus at Bath-Easton,

These made offerings of some original compositions in verse, principally tributes of adulatory compliment to their host and hostess. "These verses," says Miss SEWARD in the preface to her Poem to the Memory of Lady Miller, "... were deposited in an antique Etruscan vase, and were drawn out by gentlemen appointed to read them aloud, and to judge of their rival merits. These gentlemen, ignorant of the authors, selected three poems from the collection, which they had thought most worthy of the three Myrtle Wreaths, decreed as the rewards and honours of the day ... Once a year the most ingenious of these productions were published. Four volumes have already appeared, and the profits applied to the benefit of a charity at Bath."

These Attic pastimes continued about six years, and ceased with the death of LADY MILLER, which event happened in her forty-first year year, June 24, 1781. She was buried in the Abbey Church of Bath, where her husband erected a beautiful marble monument to her memory, with a poetical inscription by her friend ANNA SEWARD. LADY MILLER was the author of Letters from Italy, in 3 vols. 8vo. 1776,

Sir JOHN RIGGS MILLER, Bart, died in Bloomsbury Square, on May 28, 1798; a biographical notice of him is printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1798, p.626,

... The present location of the vase, however, still remains a query. ]

The following entry appears in the Cambridge University Alumni.[S16] (I have broken the text down into paragraphs, and expanded some of the abbreviations, to make it easier to read):

Miller [post Riggs-Miller] John;
Admitted Fellow-Commoner at TRINITY HALL College, March 20, 1761.
Second son of John, of Drumline, Co. Clare (and Anne, dau. of Thomas Browne, of New Grove, Co. Clare).
Schools, Dalston near London, and Eton.
Matriculated Michaelmas 1761,

Admitted at the Middle Temple, August 1, 1757.
Cornet, Light Dragoons, 1760; in Germany, 1760; Capt., 113th Foot, 1761; at the siege of Belle Isle.
Created a Baronet, 1778.
M.P. for Newport, Cornwall, 1784-90,

Married (1) Anne, dau. of Edward Riggs; (2) Jane, dau. of John Seel, and widow of Sir Thomas Davenport, M.P., who was a writer of poetry and of travels. [sic - it was Anne who was the writer]. ‘His wife brought him a large fortune, and he’ (according to Walpole) ‘full of good-natured officiousness, adopted her maiden name before his own. At extravagant cost he built a house at Batheaston, near Bath, afterwards noted for the “literary salon” there established by Lady Miller, which “bore some resemblance to the later follies of the Della Cruscana which Gifford satirised in the Baviad.”

Endeavoured to establish a fixed standard of weights and measures.
Of Ballycasey, Co. Clare; afterwards of Batheaston villa, Bath.
Died May 28, 1798; buried in Bath Abbey.
(W. R. Williams, MSS.; Eton College Reg.; Complete Baronetage, G. E. Cokayne; Gentleman's Magazine, 1798, page 626; Madame D'Arblay's Diary, 1780.)

The following Biographical Notice appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1798.[S14] (I have broken the text down into paragraphs, and added the block capitals, to make it easier to read):

Deaths: May 28. Suddenly, SIR JOHN RIGGS MILLER, bart, of Bloomsbury-square, husband of the late celebrated LADY MILLER of Bath Easton, the institutor and owner of the poetic vase, and author of "Letters from Italy" 3 vols 8vo, who died in 1751 (LI 295, LV 746). He married to his second wife the relict of SIR THOMAS DAVENPORT, knt (who died at York, March 25, 1786 (LV 127)).

Sir John was a native of Ireland, and born to a small patrimony in the county of Cork. After he had finished his education, he repaired to England, and procured a commission in the army, being first a cornet, and afterwards a lieutenant, in Elliot's light horse; with which regiment he served in Germany during the seven years war,

After the peace, he relinquished the profession of arms, and obtained an opulent spouse, on whose death he quitted his present retreat in Somersetshire, and entered on a new career, by procuring a seat in parliament, wherein his exertions, while he represented Newport, in Cornwall, from 1784 to 1790, in favour of equal weights and measures, though unsuccessful, will be gratefully remembered. On this occasion he had a long correspondence with Talleyrand de Perigord, bishop of Autun; and, we understand, Sir George Shuckburgh Evelyn has adopted the plan, with considerable improvement,

For many years past, Sir John's great amusement was a constant enquiring after, and as constant circulation of, the news of the day. Wherever news was to be had, Sir John was present; amongst the grave readers at Hookham's, the fiery politicians at Stockdale's, the facetious disputants of the Westminster library, or even the sapient money-hunting herd of Lloyd's coffee-house, if news was to be had, Sir John was there to glean it, and, to do him justice, was equally alert in relating it to his friends. In this innocent method he passed his later days,

On the 26th he had been elected captain of a new association for the parish of Bloomsbury; was in good health on the 27th, attended church, and walked in Kensington-gardens.

MONUMENT TO LADY ANNA

After LADY MILLER was buried in Bath Abbey, following her death in JUN1781, "her husband erected a beautiful marble monument to her memory, with a poetical inscription by her friend ANNA SEWARD".[S5] It is a tribute to Lady Miller that the monument is in a very privileged place, in the north wall of the Abbey sanctuary immediately next to the high altar. In the photograph below on the left, which shows the magnificent east window of the Abbey, her monument can be seen between the second arch on the left and the ornately carved reredos behind the high altar.

The right-hand photograph above shows the detail of the monument, which was carved by Bacon and erected in 1785. It shows the depiction of the Etruscan vase and myrtle wreath associated with the RIGGS MILLERS' poetic academy at Batheaston (which was only some 4 miles from the Abbey), and a medallion with a likeness of Lady Miller. Underneath the ledge of the monument is a tablet with the following inscription:

MONUMENT TO SIR JOHN AND SIR JOHN EDWARD RIGGS MILLER, AND ANNA'S MOTHER MARGARET

In the south wall of the Abbey's choir (marked on the above Plan of the Abbey) is the simpler ornate tablet erected in accordance with Sir John Edward RIGGS MILLER's instructions in his Will:

Sir John Edward Riggs Miller's Will dated 30JLY1818 (with Codicil dated 7OCT1820) was probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 19APR1826. Both the Will and its codicil are extremely complex, and the transcription taken when it was proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury runs to over 12 pages.[S44] This is because it set up a series of trusts to deal with the disposal of each of his various groups of properties, and a number of these were worded so that possession of the estate in question passed as a "tenancy for life" or more commonly as a "tenancy in tail", which when ended may have been followed by a "tenancy in remainder".

TENANCY FOR LIFE: An estate held under a tenancy for life cannot be passed on or 'devised' in a Will by the owner to his or her heirs, because ownership ceases on his or her death (bear in mind that a person cannot be an "heir to A" until the death of "A", which is why within a royal family the term "heir apparent" is used).

TENANCY IN TAIL: Fee tail or entail (now obsolescent) describes an estate of inheritance in real property which cannot be sold or devised by will, but which passes to the owner's heirs upon his or her death. It was created by words of grant in the original deed: "to A and the heirs of his body." The crucial difference between the words of conveyance and the words that created a fee simple ("to A and his heirs") is that the heirs "in tail" must be the children begotten by the landowner.

Under a "fee tail male" only sons could inherit, and under a "fee tail female," only daughters could inherit, whilst "fee tail special" had a further condition such as only the owner's children by a particular spouse could inherit. Land subject to these conditions was said to be entailed or in tail and the restrictions themselves were entailments..

TENANCY IN SPECIAL TAIL: An estate in fee tail was intended to ensure the property be held by a descendant of a specified person in perpetuity. However, that person or his last living descendant might die "without issue", i.e. childless, or "having issue, becomes extinct", i.e. his or her children had previously died without themselves leaving any living children. The person or his last living descendant in question is then a tenant in "special tail".

TENANCY IN REMAINDER: This can only be inherited on the death or termination of the former owner's tenancy for life, or due to a specific wording in a trust passing ownership from one person to another, such as on the death of a tenant in "special tail".

The following are extracts of the most relevant details which I have broken down into numbered paragraphs, simplified the wording slightly, expanded any abbreviations, and added the block capitals, to make it easier to read:

1. "I desire that my body may be interred within the abbey Church of Bath and that there may be a plain monument with my name & age and my fathers name and age and expressing also that he was buried there as well as my maternal Grandmother MRS MARGARET RIGGS but I positively enjoin that no unnecessary Expense shall be incurred by such burial".

2. He appointed as his executors "John Moore Travers of the City of Cork Esq and Edgell Wyatt Edgell of Milton Place near Egham in the Coy of Surrey Esq their heirs and assignees". He gave and devised to them "freehold and real Estates whatsoever, situate in the Coy of Limerick and in the City of Limerick" to hold for the purposes and uses of the trusts referred to subsequently in the Will. However, in a case filed in Chancery in 1832 against the executors, it was established there were no estates in co.Limerick, but there were estates in co.Clare which it was said the Will did not refer to.

3. Provision was made for a payment by the trustees of £200 each year from rent charges to "Miss CHARLOTTE FRANCES BENGE, daughter of MRS BENGE Widow now residing at No 33 Upper Eaton Street Pimlico London." and a payment of £300 each year from rent charges to "JOHN MANVERS born the 10th October 1815 and now residing at MRS BENGE Widow No 33 Upper Eaton Street Pimlico in London".

4A. The residual estate was to pass for the use of his eldest son by his wife Ellen or, in the absence of sons, his eldest daughter.

4B. In the event of Sir John Edward dying without leaving any children by his wife Ellen, the residual estate was to pass to the executors upon trust "until the said JOHN MANVERS now of the age of 2 years and 9 months or thereabouts shall attain the age of 24 years" and that they were to pay not exceeding £400 a year "for the maintenance education clothing and bringing up or for the use of the said John Manvers until he shall attain the age of 24 years or die under that age". Once John Manvers had reached the age of 24, then the income from the trust was to be held for use by him and after his death for use by his eldest son or, in the absence of sons, for use by his eldest daughter.

4C.If John Manvers died without leaving any children, then the income from the trust was for the use of "ELIZA MILLER Spinster the younger daughter of the late JOHN MILLER of Toonagh [or Troonah?] near Ennis in the County of Clare". After her death it was for the use of her eldest son or, in the absence of sons, her eldest daughter.

4D. "For default of such issue to the use of my own right heirs for ever provided always".

5. "I give and bequeath all my plate and pictures and my service of Dresden China which formerly belonged to my great grandfather Captain Pigott" to his executors upon trust "for the person or respective persons who for the time being shall be entitled" to his estates so that they "may go and be enjoyed with the said Estates from time to time in the nature of heir looms".

6. He gave and devised to his executors to hold in trust "all my Leasehold Estates and premises situate in the County of Clare and held under a Lease granted thereof by the Bishop of Killallo " (this refers to 'Killaloe'). The trust was to be dealt with in the same way as the trust relating to the Limerick properties., i.e., as in paragraphs 4A to 4C: his own issue, else John Manvers and his issue, else Eliza Miller and her issue. However, if Eliza Miller had no issue, then the wording differed slightly from that in paragraph 4D: "for the person or respective persons who shall happen to by my next of kin and would be entitled upon the Statute of distribution of Intestates Effects to my personal estate upon the ceasing or determination of the above trusts if I had then died intestate".

7. "I give and devise all my Estates comprized in the settlement made previous to my marriage with my said dear wife situate in the County of Cork and in the City & County of the City of Cork in default or in ffailure (sic) of issue of my body by my said dear wife but subject to the several limitations thereof contained in the said settlement" in trust to his executors "for and during the natural life of my sister Jane Elizabeth the wife of (blank space) Wheatley of (blank space)" and the income from the trust was to be held for use by "Jane Elizabeth the wife of the said John Wheatley Esq for her own sole and separate use independently of her said husband or of any husband or husbands she may hereafter happen to have." On Jane Elizabeth's death, the trust was to be dealt with in the same way as the trust relating to the Limerick properties. In the 1876 Return Of Owners Of Land in Ireland, the Lists for co. Cork include an entry for "Sir J. Riggs MILLER, Reps.of - no address given - 135 acres".[S18]

8. The persons entitled to possession of his freehold estates "shall take the surnames of RIGGS MILLER only and not in addition to or together or alone with any other surname and bear my arms". If any of them "refuse or neglect to take such surnames and bear the arms and to take and use the steps and means which shall be requisite or proper to enable and authorize him so to do for the space of one year next after becoming entitled to the possession of the said freehold estates or any of them or any part or parts thereof" or if he is under 21 years within one year after attaining the age of 21, then they will not inherit any part of the estates. "the said freehold estates shall immediately thereupon go to the person next in remainder in the same manner as if the person whose Estate shall so cease determine and become void being tenant for life was dead or being tenant in tail was dead without issue".

Sir John Edward would have inherited the arms of his father.who had been granted them when he became Sir John MILLER of Ballycasey. Burke [S17] ascribed the following to "MILLER, of Ballycasey, Co.Clare":
CREST: A griffin's head erased argent, ducally gorged and chained azure.
ARMS: Argent, a fess wavy azure between three griffins' heads erased gules.
A 'barriers helm' worn by a baronet replaces the 'tilting helm' worn by gentlemen and esquires.

9. He instructed his executors to invest £4,000 in their joint names in "stork funds or government securities" and reinvest the income until JOHN MANVERS had reached the age of 24, when the income should be paid to him during his lifetime, and thereafter in shares between his sons and daughters who had reached the age of 21 or be married. If John Manvers died without leaving any such issue at the time of his death, then the trust funds should be transferred to ELIZA MILLER for her use absolutely.

10. "To my dear wife Ellen for whom I feel the most tender love and deep respect I leave no property in land or money because she is sufficiently provided for by our marriage settlement, and by the moiety of the Beauchamp Estate but as a token of my affection I bequeath to her my jewells (sic) and household furniture linen china horses & carriages harness saddles grapery melon and cucumber frames and all garden implements billiard table musical instruments wearing apparel trinkets watches snuff boxes brothes(?) glass and other library and scientific apparatus cows sheep and all live and dead farming stock carts carriages & implements whatsoever".

11. "I give to each of my domestic servants who shall be in my service at my decease the sum of £5 and a suit of mourning".

12. The rest of his estate not previously disposed of was to go to JOHN MANVERS when he became 24, but if he died before or after becoming 24 without leaving lawful issue, it was to go to ELIZA MILLER.

13. THE CODICIL referred to the moiety of the Beauchamp Estate of property in Cornwall. Following the death of Catherine Beauchamp the widow of Joseph Beauchamp, the sum of £8,000 was to be raised from the properties and paid to Sir John Edward. In the codicil to his Will, he waived the need to raise any balance that might remain unpaid at the time of his death.

The following case is referred to as "Miller v. Travers (1832) 131 E.R. 395 (Chancery) - Tindal, C.J. (Lord Lyndhurst concurring)" [S53]. Edgell Wyatt Edgell was also an executor and trustee of Sir John Edward RIGGS MILLER's Will, but it appears that the case was defended only by John Moore Travers.

THE PLAINTIFF: John RIGGS MILLER, who had changed his name from John MANVERS in accordabce with the terms of the Will. He was then receiving from the rent charges of the estates in question an annual allowance of £300 and an annual provision by the executors of up to £400 for his "maintenance education clothing and bringing up" and for his use until he reached the age of 24, when all the income was to pass to him. However, as he was born 10OCT1815, he would only have been 16 or 17 when the case was brought.

THE CAUSE: He filed against the defendants (the executors of Sir John Edward RIGGS MILLER's Will) to establish the will and to carry its trusts into effect. This was necessary because there was a problem with the Will: Sir John Edward had devised "all his freehold and real estates whatsoever, situate in the county of Limerick, and in the city of Limerick", when it was stated he had no real estate in County Limerick, but he did have estates in co.Clare which it was said the Will did not refer to. The Will had in fact referred to estates in co.Cork comprised in the settlement made previous to his marriage, whereby his sister Jane Elizabeth WHEATLEY was to received the incomes under a life interest, with them reverting on her death to the executors as part of the trusts established in bis Will.
The Vice-Chancellor had decided that the cause should proceed to trial with the issue being: Did the testator, "devise his estates in the county of Clare, and in the county of Limerick, and in the city and county of the city of Limerick, or either and which of them, to the trustees mentioned in his will, and their heirs[?]" The defendant appealed that decision.

The ISSUE: Is 'parol evidence' admissible to show the testator's intention that his estates in County Clare should pass by his will?

THE LEGAL PRINCIPLES: "Ambiguitas verboum latens, verificatione suppletur", is a maxim which Tindal, C.J. interpreted as meaning that: "where a difficulty arises in applying the words of a will to the thing which is the subject matter of the devise, or to the person of the devisee, the difficulty or ambiguity which is introduced by the admission of extrinsic evidence, may be rebutted and removed by the production of further evidence, upon the same subject, calculated to explain what was the estate or subject matter really intended to be devised."

ANALYSIS: For the purpose of argument, Tindal, C.J. posited that if parol evidence was acceptable, it would be established beyond contradiction that the intention of the testator was to devise his estates in co.Clare to the trustees. He stated that the cases where the above-noted maxim applies, can be sorted into two classes:
- Where the description of the devise or the devisee is clear on the face of the will but upon the testator's death it is found that there are more than one estate or subject matter, or more than one person, which fits the description in the will. An example of this class is where two estates have the same name and the will does not specify which one is meant.
- The description in the will of the thing to be devised or the person to take the devise is true in part, but not in every aspect. An example of this class is where a person's name is not accurate.
This case did not fit into either of those categories because the plaintiff wished to call in extrinsic evidence to introduce to the will an intention not apparent upon the face of it.

CONCLUSION: This use of extrinsic evidence is inconsistent with the rule that the testator's intention is to be gathered from the words of the will and also that new words cannot be added. After a review of the case law, especially Newburgh v. Newburgh, the court decided that the plaintiff in this case should not be allowed to enter extrinsic evidence. The Order of the Vice-Chancellor was reversed and John Riggs Miller lost his case.