CHARITABLE GIFTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 18, 1 November 1938, Page 10

CHARITABLE GIFTS

MANY AUCKLAND INSTITUTIONS. ESTATE VALUED AT £450,000. (Per Press Association,) AUCKLAND, October 31. Probate lias been granted of a will disposing of the largest estate that has been recorded at the Auckland Supreme Court for many years. The estate is that of Mrs Marianne Caughey Preston, M.8.E., whose death occurred on September 1, and it has been provisionally valued for the purposes of probate at under £450,000. Mrs Caughey Preston was a liberal benefactor of many religious and philanthropic causes during her lifetime, and the great bulk of the estate she has left is now to be devoted to similar purposes. By far the largest of the bequests is the gift of the residue of the estate for the establishment of a rest home in Auckland for aged, infirm or impecunious women. With this gift is associated part of “The Grange” property in Ponsonby, and an endowment of £20,000. As none of the many personal legacies is large in amount, it is evident that the residue will be a very substantial sum.

Next in size is a gift of £25,000 for a special evangelisation fund. Twenty specific charitable bequests, including £25,000 mentioned, will absorb a total of £56,000.

The women’s rest home which it is intended the bulk of the estate is to provide, is to be known as the Marianne Caughey-Smith-Preston memorial rest home for aged, infirm, or impecunious women, and its advantages are to be made available irrespective of the religious beliefs of the inmates. Evangelical "Work. The' Caughev-Smith-Preston Memorial Evangelisation Fund, for which £25,000 has been set aside, is to be administered by four ministers, one each (representing the Presbyterian, .Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational Churches. Its main purpose is to employ young men in evangelisation in the backblocks, and the trustees are required to sign their assent every year to certain doctrinal statements of belief that are provided. To the Salvation Army has been given three and a quarter acres of land, and buildings thereon known as “The Grange,” Ponsonby, for the continuation of the orphanage work which the Salvation Army is now carrying on there. To her homie town of Portaferry, County Down,’ Northern Ireland, Mrs Caughey Preston has left £SOOO for the foundation of a rest home or rest homes to be called after her, and has also provided £2OOO toward’ the endowment of these. The trustees of the Methodist Church at Portaferry are to receive £250 for the use of the poor of that town, without distinction on account of denomination or religious belief.

A gift of £6OOO to the trustees of the -Cliff Methodist College, Calver, near Sheffield, is made in recognition *of the regard held 1 by her husband, the Rev. Raymond Preston, for that college, and is to be used to provide scholarships to be known at the Raymond Preston scholarships. Born at Portaferry, near Belfast, Mrs Preston came to New Zealand in 1880, with her first husband, the late Mr W, H. Smith, who, with her brother, the late Mr A. C. Caughey, founded, the well known drapery firm of Smith and Caughey, Ltd. After Mr Smith’s death in 1912, she married the Rev. Raymond Preston, a' retired minister of the English Methodist Church, who survives her.