Inheritance Act 1833

[1.] Meaning of words in the Act: “Land.” “The purchaser.” “Descent.” “Descendants.” “Person last entitled.” “Assurance.” Number and gender. U.K.

The words and expressions herein-after mentioned, which in their ordinary signification have a more confined or a different meaning, shall in this Act, except where the nature of the provision or the context of the Act shall exclude such construction, be interpreted as follows; (that is to say,) the word “land” shall extend to manors, advowsons, messuages, and all other hereditaments, whether corporeal or incorporeal, and whether freehold or copyhold, or of any other tenure, and whether descendible according to the common law, or according to the custom of gavelkind or borough-English, or any other custom, and to money to be laid out in the purchase of land, and to chattels and other personal property transmissible to heirs, and also to any share of the same hereditaments and properties or any of them, and to any estate of inheritance, or estate for any life or lives, or other estate transmissible to heirs, and to any possibility, right, or title of entry or action, and any other interest capable of being inherited, and whether the same estates, possibilities, rights, titles, and interests, or any of them, shall be in possession, reversion, remainder, or contingency; and the words “the purchaser” shall mean the person who last acquired the land otherwise than by descent, or than by any escheat, partition, or inclosure, by the effect of which the land shall have become part of or descendible in the same manner as other land acquired by descent; and the word “descent” shall mean the title to inherit land by reason of consanguinity, as well where the heir shall be an ancestor or collateral relation, as where he shall be a child or other issue; and the expression “descendants” of any ancestor shall extend to all persons who must trace their descent through such ancestor; and the expression “the person last entitled to land” shall extend to the last person who had a right thereto, whether he did or did not obtain the possession or the receipt of the rents and profits thereof; and the word “assurance” shall mean any deed or instrument (other than a will) by which any land shall be conveyed or transferred at law or in equity; and every word importing the singular number only shall extend and be applied to several persons or things as well as one person or thing; and every word importing the masculine gender only shall extend and be applied to a female as well as a male.