FORTUNE IN FIRE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 263, 19 August 1936, Page 2

FORTUNE IN FIRE.

PIECES OF TORN WILL. Eight thousand pounds has now come toi a widow and nine children through a will that was torn up and thrown into the fire by an angry husband during a tiff with his wife. The will was made by the late Mr Albert Bulmer, of Stoke-on-Trent, and probate was recently granted to the wife by Mr Justice Bucknill in the Probate Court. The Judge told the story of the tiff in his summing-up. “In the summer of 1932,” he related, “Mr Bulmer had brought papers, including the will, into the dining-room of his house. Mrs Bulmer asked him for a little money for household expenses. At that time he was worried about finance, and he said he could not afford the money. “Mrs Bulmer said, ‘lf that is the case there won’t be anything for anybody, and that will you have made won’t he enough for nine children. There won’t be enough for toys for the grandchildren.’ This made Mr Bulmer angry. His wife was also distressed, and went into the kitchen. After a time, her husband followed her. He tore the will up and threw it on the fire.

“It was scorched only in one place before Mrs Bulmer recovered it. Since then she had kept it—torn in six pieces—in an envelope. I am inclined to the view,” concluded the Judge, “that what the dead man did was done in a temper, possibly to annoy his wife, and that the wife took the pieces out of the fire with his consent. There was no evidence of an intention to revoke the will.”