by Sam McBride

I recently was notified by ancestry.com that they had an image of the probate record of Capt. Frederic Thornton Peters.

Fritz left an estate of 254 pounds, most of which probably went to pay off loans and debts. The record says the probate went to Rosalind Varley (wife of Cromwell Hanford Varley), which confirms that she was executor (or executrix, as she described herself in a letter to Fritz`s mother) of Fritz`s will. Rosalind Varley said in her letter that she would forward Fritz`s personal effects to his family in Canada when the war was over and sea transport was safe. I recent had an enjoyable phone chat with Rosalind`s daughter Juliet who had many happy memories of Fritz`s regular visits to the Varley home.

The probate went through on Feb. 1, 1943 and was registered at the Llandudno registry in north Wales. They listed the Peters address as: care of the United Service Club, Pall Mall, London, which was the address he noted in his March 1942 letter to his sister Helen Dewdney, the last correspondence the relatives received from him. That same address was also on passenger lists for several voyages Fritz took in the years between the wars.

The date of death in the record was November 13, 1942, further confirming information from the Admiralty Office of Fritz`s date of death in a flying boat crash in Plymouth Sound