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appointment of assignees to oversee repayments, Shore appealed against the fiat of bankruptcy, but failed to get it overturned.
    In 1845, a family home ‘late in occupation of Offley Shore’, was to let in Spondon; it had a coach house, stables and ‘good pleasure and kitchen gardens’. By the end of that decade, Norton Hall was unoccupied. In 1850, the Sheffield Freehold Land Society purchased 31 acres ‘forming a portion of the large domains of Offley Shore which have been brought to the hammer under an order from the Court of Chancery’. Shore was to remain in bankruptcy for at least 17 years, throughout the childhood of his youngest son Offley Bohun Shore. By the time he made his Will, however, in October 1867, he once again had various shares and sums of money to leave to his family.
    The Will is a long and very complex handwritten document, containing lengthy explanations of how Offley Shore’s father, Samuel Shore, disposed of his property, and settled annuities on Eliza, Offley’s wife; perhaps in order to protect her from her husband’s financial problems. Offley’s Will makes detailed provision for the disposal and distribution of his own assets, principally to his three sons, Harrington Offley, Sydney Foy and Offley Bohun Shore. There is also a sentence informing his daughter, Caroline Stovin (she had married the Reverend Charles Stovin, from Surrey) that ‘
it is not from any want of natural love and affection that I do not make any further provision for her by this my Will but because I consider she is most amply provided for and I am sure she will see the justice of this my Will in favour of her brothers ...
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    In keeping with the complexity and changeable nature of the Shore fortunes, Offley felt the need to add a codicil to his Will, just nine days before he died, after he and his eldest son, Harrington, had sold an estate. This gave Harrington a large advantage in the value of the bequests, which Offley Shore senior sought to remedy by leaving another estate to be shared between the two younger sons. This last minute addition was witnessed by Benjamin Spawton and John Bisbey, respectively butler and coachman in the Shore household.
    The final curious twist in this financial maze led to a statement being added to the Will and codicil by Spawton, and witnessed by a Commissioner of Oaths, two months later. This listed individually all the changes made to the Will; and confirmed that, though the two witnesses had not actually seen Offley Shore writing the changes and additions contained in the codicil, they were convinced that he had made them:
    â€˜I make oath and say as follows that on the day on which the testator signed the said codicil and just before doing so he rang the bell for me and told me he wanted me and John Bisbey the other attesting witness to the codicil to see him sign the same at that time he was turning over the pages of the said codicil and he had a pen in his hand and though I did not actually see him make the alterations and interlineations above set forth I have no doubt whatever that he then and there made the said interlineations and alterations before he [unreadable] the said codicil.’
    Was this just the deceased’s solicitor being over-cautious about a late codicil? Or had someone questioned the changes that altered the balance of bequests between the three brothers, and challenged the witnesses about whether these had truly been made by the old man so close to his death? There is no way of knowing. But with the death of Offley Shore, the Shore family’s destiny passed into the hands of the three brothers. Perhaps Caroline Stovin had cause eventually to be grateful that she was well provided for without her family’s support; because in less than ten years, two of the brothers had bankrupted the family again.
    Yet the youngest son, Florence’s father Offley Bohun Shore, had entered a solid profession that held out