ABSTRACT
The family has been central to the study of post-mortem property transmission. Across time and over space immediate kin have, almost without exception, been identified as the main recipients of testamentary gifts.' However, within Britain research has tended to concentrate on the issue of aristocratic inheritance, exploring the transmission of land from one generation to the next and examining how this affected family formation and the economic and social reproduction of rural society.2 This particular study is concerned with urban families, who differed from rural families in their inheritance practices.3 The estates of urban families were more likely to consist of a higher level of moveable assets than those of rural testators. This was linked to a pattern of inheritance characterised by an even division of estate rather than one based upon the principle of primogeniture. This chapter aims to explore in more detail the inheritance strategies of urban property owners in order to cast light on the ways in which inheritance reproduced the social structures of middleclass families.
