WILL OF BUNYAN?

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 155, 29 December 1938, Page 10

WILL OF BUNYAN?

A SCHOOLBOY'S FIND

Captain A. Mearles, of the Nottingham Bluecoat School, expressed the opinion recently that a document found by Paul Collier, one of his pupils, may be a copy, made by John Bunyan himself, of his will.

The document, which was crumpled and,, yellow with age, was found in a copy of "Pilgrim's Progress" given to the boy two years ago.

Captain Mearles said: "This copy was written with a quill pen and bears the same date as the original will, December 23, 1685. It will be submitted to leading authorities for their opinion.!'

Dr. Frank Mott Harrison, of Hove, Sussex, a leading authority on Bunyan, said that the actual will is in the Bunyan Church at Bedford, and expressed the opinion that the document found was probably a reproduction printed in Phillips's "Life of Bunyan" many years ago.

The original of Bunyan's will is kept under lock and key at the Bunyan Meeting Church, Bedford, the will exhibited in the church-museum being merely a photographed copy.

While the penmanship in the document found at Nottingham is similar to tlfat of the actual will and the provisions are identical, there are a few slight differences in the text and spelling. The four signatures are in precisely the same writing as those on the known will.