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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JUNE, 1923
Signed Sealed and published by the Testator to be his last will and Testament the day and yeare above written in the presence of.
NATH. HILL, 169
JAMES HARDING. 169 Ballasore thirty first January one Thousand Six hundred and Eighty one (1681/2). A true copie of the Originalle, Witnesse our hands.
JNO. SUTTON.
JNO. BROWNE. The will was proved in England on the 15th February 1683/4, by Catherine Scatter good, widow, who had previously received from the Court of Committees the balance of her son's salary that was willed to her. The sum paid over to her was £ 31.13.11. 160 Roger Scattergood, the testator's father, predeceased his son by three months, 161 and Catherine Scattergood therefore administered the estate.
The conditions of life in the Company's factories in India in the 17th century were such as to make the remarriage of widows a very usual occurrence and almost a matter of course. It is therefore not surprising to find that within a short period after her husband's death, Mrs. John Scattergood (nie Radcliffe) married Richard Trenchfield, « servant of the E. I. Co., who had been elected writer in October 1671,169 and in 1682, was a member of the Council at Hägli. No record has been found of this second marriage nor any note of the sending of the young John Scattergood to England in accordance with his father's wishes, though these were duly observed.
(To be continued.)
189 James Harding is probably identical with the individual of that name who was elected writer in November 1671, suspended from his post in Bengal in 1878 and dismissed the service in 1679. He was ordered home to England, but refused to go and oventually died at Fort St. George. Of the other witnesses no record has been found. They were probably oonnooted with the Company's shipping. 160 Court Minute, XXXIII, 200, 208, 209a.
101 See ante, p. 16. 163 Court Minutos, XXVII, 87.