The wills with their lists of instructions and contingencies were snapshots of intentions and strategies frozen in time by the prospect of death. The intentions outlined in the wills can only be understood as part of long term life cycle strategies. For members of the middle classes, a key part of such strategies was the management of property, hence the appropriate name for this process was the property cycle, which was as distinctive and influential as the poverty cycle which shaped the lives of many working class people.

Robert Jowitt, woolstapler

Robert Jowitt of Leeds, woolstapler, was in many respects a characteristic member of the Leeds merchant elite. He was successful in trade and active in public life. His comfortable private and domestic life depended on a household income of around £1000 a year. He was exceptional in two ways. His membership of the Society of Friends gave him a heightened awareness of the importance of family and property which was a feature of the English Quaker family networks He kept detailed personal account books throughout his adult life. These accounts were a very particular mirror of his world. They were the means by which Robert Jowitt made sense of his world. They were the means by which he endeavoured to assert control over the relationships of property, family and business. In these books he partitioned his world between family and business. He identified property, obligation, cash and commodities.