Agreement for the separation of Thomas Paine from his wife Elizabeth, née Ollive.

Item author: Thomas Paine
Item date: 1774
Grant Value: £1,345
Item cost: £13,420
Item cost pre-decimal: NULL
Item date acquired: 2009
Item institution: East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Record Office
Town/City: Lewes
County: East Sussex

In 1768 Thomas Paine (1737-1809) became an excise officer in Lewes, where he lodged at Bull House with the nonconformist grocer Samuel Ollive, whose daughter Elizabeth he married in 1771. In 1774 the marriage broke up, Paine's business failed and he was dismissed from the excise service. Samuel Ollive had advanced ideas on the equality of women, and his will divided his property equally between his sons and daughters. The Deed of Separation compensated Paine for the loss of his reversionary rights in Ollive's estate with the sum of £45; sufficient for him to live on until October 1774, when armed with a letter from Benjamin Franklin, he set sail for America and world fame.

Item Provenance
Bloomsbury Book Auctions 19 November 2009, lot 278
Agreement for the separation of Thomas Paine from his wife (AMS 7000-1). FNL grant 2009. Image courtesy of East Sussex Record Office.
Agreement for the separation of Thomas Paine from his wife (AMS 7000-1). FNL grant 2009. Image courtesy of East Sussex Record Office.