| Administrative History | The book of hours is believed to have originally belonged to the Statham family of Morley as the book includes prayers for the souls of named members of the Statham family who died between 1380 and 1453. A requiem prayer plaque in Morley church states 'John Statham ordyned this to be said & more writen in other divers bokis' which suggests that the book of hours may have been one of those 'divers books, and therefore possibly dates to a few years after 1453.
The Statham male line came to an end in 1480 and the Statham heiress, Joan, married John Sacheverell of Snitterton and Hopwell. The book of hours seems to have descended in the Sacheverell of Morley line at least until the death of Henry Sacheverell in 1662. The family were suspected to be Catholic; the births of Jacinth Sacheverell's four children between 1619 and 1624 are noted at the back of the volume but are not recorded in the Morley parish registers, which may confirm that they were indeed Catholic. After the death of his son and heir, Jacinth Sacheverell bequeathed the Morley estates to his kinsman, Henry Sacheverell (d1662) of Barton, Notts, and it is probably this Henry whose signature is found in the front of the volume.
By the mid 19th century, the book had passed to the Wardle family; Arthur Wardle's signature is written at the front of the volume, and a list of Wardle births is written on a page at the back. In the 20th century, the book belonged first to Richard Arthur Dufty of Farnham, Surrey, whose bookplate is pasted into the front of the volume. In 1962 it was purchased by Denis Roy Bentham of Loughborough. |
| Custodial History | This document was purchased at auction in February 2002. |