“BADLY TREATED.”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 138, 23 March 1935, Page 5

“BADLY TREATED.”

FORMER VIOLINIST’S CLAIM. DEAD HUSBAND’S ESTATE. (United Press Association —Copyright). (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The Equity Court has concluded the claim by the oue-tim© famous violinist who toured Europe, America and New Zealand. Mrs Lydia Elizabeth Northey, aged 6R otherwise Bessie Doyle and later known as Mrs Eileen Moore, for, a share in the estate of her late husband, Louis Reginald Northey," who died in 1933, leaving £23,000. Of this amount £IOOO was bequeathed to a sister in England, and the remainder to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of Great Britain. Mr Justice Innes said that a pnma facie case had 1 been made out that testator hadl domicile either British by origin or New Zealand by choice, when he married applicant at Auckland in 1891. As it. had not been made out that'testator had domicile where the Dakota decree of divorce was recognised as valid applicant was entitled to benefit under the Act. The Judge expressed the opinion that applicaiit had been very badly treated, and adjourned the case to enable counsel to be heard as to the quantum and form of the order he should make.

Mrs Northey, who said she is practically destitute, married Northey, at a registrar’s office in Auckland in. 1894. He deserted her after a concert toiir ot the Dominion, which he managed, and later invited her to divorce him. She obtained a divorce at North Dakota, America, and remarried Robert Mitchell, in 1899. Northey met her in Paris some time later and informed her that her marriage with Mitchell was bigamous. He asked her to 1 leave Mitchell, which she did, since when she has always regarded Northey as her legitimate husband, although in recent years she maintained herself by concert work and teaching music.