I have in my possession a document that is apparently from 1860. I'm not really sure what it is. It seems to be something to do with a "Mr. Edward Balme Wheatley-Balme" and regarding the "Sheep Ings Farm, Mirfield, Yorkshire".
It is around 70cm x 50cm, and on, I assume, parchment. It is written in calligraphy and has signatures and wax seals. There are 5 pages. Would anyone be able to take a look at it for me, here is a link to my Google Drive folder with pictures I scanned in and joined together in photoshop. It was rather hard to scan, as the paper has been folded, but I tried my best enough for you to get a good idea.
I have already tired getting in touch with the Yorkshire Archaeological & Historical Society, but they replied once (months ago) and said that they'd have someone look at it, then never got back in touch with me :(
I would really appreciate any information I can get about it, as it's a mystery and pretty much useless to me. If it's something of historical value, I'd rather it be somewhere that would take good care of it.
I'm sort of limited with what I can do, since although I was born and raised in Yorkshire, I live in Japan, so it's difficult to really get any information.
I'm not really sure if this is the right place to be asking this, so I understand if this gets deleted. I would appreciate any help I can get.
Thank you in advance.
Just from the first page, it appears that a man called Sidney Hebblethwaite died around 1830. He owned a farm, but his heirs decided to pass on the holding to someone called Abraham Sheard, and he paid them £400 each (three heirs). It appears that it took until 1848 to get the transaction completed (it refers to principal and interest, so this records the completion of the loan, all monies paid). This document (page 1) is the final receipt for payment and completion of the deed of transfer. It appears to refer back to earlier documents but details a farm (the "tenement") with a house (the "messuage"), a barn and use of certain fields.
Just a quick glance at the other documents: the Indenture (page 5) might transfer the master/apprentice (probably in modern terms employer/employee) obligations from Hebblethwaite to Sheard so that whatever deal they had with their workers was continued.
Their "employment" was passed on as a piece of property; theoretically an Indenture carried obligations in both directions, and you had to put together a sum of money to get to be an Indentured servant, so it must have seemed like a good deal at the time (better than the alternative).
The others look like an Indenture for Edward Balme (he paid four hundred pounds, so Sheard might have passed that on to the heirs of Hebblethwaite), and a receipt for a payment. The "back" document says that it is a conveyance, the term for the transfer of land/property. A full title would consist of a chain starting (in principle) with a grant of land from a king (or since "time immemorial", which was 1189 - they just missed the Prescription Act 1832 which simplified things a little), through several conveyances, to the present day. If you have received the land in a conveyance, and not conveyed it on to another, then you are the owner of the land. Land can also pass by inheritance, as happened just before these documents (Hebblethwaite died, and his heirs decided to sell up, allowing Sheard to pay in installments with interest).
In short, these are the documents that would have proved that Sheard was the owner of this farm, that he owed no obligation to the previous owners, and that he was the boss of Edward Balme, the Wheatley family and various others (who might otherwise claim that they had a deal with Hebblethwaite and not Sheard, so owed Sheard no obligation). All the rights that Hebblethwaite had had, now belonged to Sheard.
try the relevant Yorkshire archive service, they're part of the county libraries and have paid staff who (in my experience!) are very helpful. There's a Mirfield in West Yorkshire, so that would be the West Yorkshire Archive Service https://www.wyjs.org.uk/archive-service/
It looks like some sort of indenture agreement, which would definitely have historical value. I’d be happy to at least try to transcribe it (though fair warning: my transcription skills are a bit rusty), but it might be this weekend before I have time to give it a proper look.
Interestingly, it appears that Sheep Ings Farm still exists and is now grade II listed. It's currently owned by Traditional Stone & Slate Supplies Ltd.
There's a PDF if you look on Google from Kirklees council who did an impact study on the farm when they were thinking about building houses on a nearby patch of land. I can't figure out how to droo a hyperlink to it but it's got some interesting info about the history of the farm, and mentions that its field boundaries are a bit unusual, an arrangement dating to 1855.
Any news reports about the proposed housing scheme are from 2017 so I don't know if it's still active, but Kirklees Council might be interested in whatever it is you've got.