THE WEALTH THAT FAILED

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 172, 23 July 1898, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE WEALTH THAT FAILED

Life's game of see-saw— Many the ups and clownsOne day your counting your five pun notes; Another— collecting your 'browns.

Thus a popular music hall ditty of ten years ago, and there are three people living on the fringe of the Rosewarne Estate, near Cambornc, Cornwall, to-day to whom the doggerel applies well. A few months ago they were living at the rate of £4,000 a year each; "to-day they are keeping an eye on the 'browns' and waiting anxiously for the decision of the House of Lords on their claims to the Rosewarne Estates at Camborne and the Philleigh and Gwinear properties. If the decision, which is expected to be given shortly, is in their favour, they will each once more enjoy an income of something like £2,500 a year. The story of their sudden reversal of fortune is worth telling: —

The late incumbent of the estates, William Henry Harris Hartley, died in June, 1894, in his seventy-third year. At his death the property was claimed by a Mr Steniles Van Grutten, a son of a deceased married sister of the dead man. Shortly afterwards Mrs Elizabeth Truscott, of Padstow, a widow living on a National Lifeboat Fund pension entered claims to the property on behalf of herself, a married sister, and a relative named Wm. Foxwell. Mrs Truscott knew nothing of the whereabouts of those whose claims she put forward, but advertisements discovered her sister, Mrs Pascoe, at Mount Gambier, where she kept a store, and Foxwell at Omaha, Nebraska, where he was running an oil shop. They both caane to England, and then the legal fight began. At the Bodmin Assizes some 150 certificates relating to births, marriages, and deaths in the Hartley family and its branches were produced, and after a patient hearing judgment was given in favour of Mrs Truscott, her sister, and Foxwell. Van Grutten appealed, but the High Court confirmed the Bodmin judgment, and granted to Mrs Truscott and company immediate possession. Mrs Truscott signalled her accession to wealth by giving a big party, to which all the friends of her days' of poverty were invited, and followed this up with lavish presents to all who had been kind to her. Mrs Pascoe and Foxwell were not behind her in 'good works' among the poor of the district. For a month or so the trio lived in clover and then came a cruel awakening. Van Grutten carried his case to the House of Lords, on the ground that one Hartley had inherited the property in two estates, one. of which was unquestionably his, and last November the Upper House, by its decision, practically said to the three claimants in possession, 'You are certainly not entitled to one part of the property and must give it up. Before we can' give you a decision on the other part you must obtain a verdict from your local jury on some questions of fact which were omitted a.t the last trial.' This brought about the giving up to Van Grutten of about a third of the .property and the eviction of Mrs Truscott, Mrs Pascoe, and Mr Foxwell, and the appointment of an official receiver for the remainder of the estate pending further proceedings. Since the ejectment, the case has bean brought before the local jury which decided favourably to the three claimants on the questions of fact, but some new points of law were raised. This enabled Van Grutten to once more carry the matter to the Court of Appeal. Here the local judg-e and jury were again upheld, but the question of the larger portion of the estates is now before the House of Lords.

The legal proceedings in this extraordinary case are said to have cost over £20,000. •