Weird Wills:
Having the
last laugh
Writing a will is an important task and one that shouldn’t be neglected. Obviously a will is there to distribute your
estate to the people you want to inherit it and to appoint people you trust to make sure your wishes are carried
out, but it’s also an opportunity to pass on items of sentiment or make small gestures to the people who mean
the most to you. That said, sometimes wills can get downright bizarre. Here’s a look at some odd bequests drawn
both from our own personal experience and famous people’s well-known wishes.
1. William Shakespeare
“Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…”
Perhaps the most famous example of an odd bequest was Shakespeare’s gift of his ‘second best bed’ to Anne
Hathaway, his wife of 34 years. Though today this may look like a snub it was actually common to specifically
gift a bed in a will in the 1600 as they were a representation of wealth. As a wife you’d at least expect the best
one though!
2. Anonymous
A gift of the left sock of every pair of socks that the testator (person making the will) owned
at death.
Don’t worry, this wasn’t done out of spite! We’re sure that there was an in-joke here between the brothers
involved.
3. Andre Tchaíkowsky
A gift of the testator’s own skull
Polish composer Tchaíkowsky died in 1982. In his will he made a gift of his skull to the Royal Shakespeare
Company with the wish that it was one day used as the skull of Yorick in Hamlet. As desired, his skull was
eventually used on stage in 2008 by David Tennant portraying Hamlet.
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the society of will writers