ABSTRACT
Victoria began her 64-year reign as Queen of England in 1837. In the same year, a new statute was enacted that gave the last will and testament the shape it essentially still bears in England and in the United States today. The Wills Act of 1837 repealed hundreds of years of testamentary law and made the will a distinctly modern document. Bringing together the older forms of devise and testament (forms used for the disposal of real and personal property, respectively), it created a single legal will to serve as the mechanism for expressing and enacting the testator’s newly expanded power (Ritchie 21). As a specifically written document, one whose authenticity was declared in writing by testator and witnesses alike, the will provided a permanent, visible record of the writer’s worldly goods, and of the writer.
