The Final Years of Maria West

As Maria West entered the final years of her life, she seems to have been considerably exercised by the future of the portfolio of Downpatrick lands that she had inherited from her first cousin, Elizabeth Carson. 

St. Mary, Stoke Newington from
Ancestry Images

Her last will is an extraordinarily long, detailed, and closely-written document much of which is devoted to trustee arrangements for the lands. In the first version, she leaves the lands in trusteeship to George Wombwell of Commercial Road London, with the said George being assigned the responsibility to distribute the rents between her daughters. She revoked this arrangement in a codicil however and reassigned the trusteeship. Given that the year was now 1839, and the children fully adult, the arrangements seem somewhat curious. 

Maria died in 1846 in Stoke Newington. In her will, which is is over six pages long, not a hint is delivered as to her origins and family back in Downpatrick, nor to the exact nature of her relationship with the Elizabeth Carson of Bristol from whom she inherited the lands.

Whatever had brought Maria to London, and whatever circumstances she found herself in, she must at least have enjoyed a life of comfort once the lawyers back in Downpatrick had arranged for the rentals to be transferred to her.