VANISHED BANKER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 179, 27 July 1912, Page 17

VANISHED BANKER.

MYSTEBY~!OF LETTER. TO FIANCEE.) A motion was listed In the Probate division of tile English Courts in June, before the President, to presume the death of Mr William Robert Uddenlale, at one time manager of the Ilminster branch, of Sttrctey's Bank. It revives one of the strangest mysteries of the last quarter of a eentnry. A few days before Ms appointed marriage to Miss Elizabeth. Chapman, tliat was on January 8, 1892, Mr -Lidderdale journeyed from Ilminster to London, having drawn from his banking current account £1,020. He has not been traced since. His marriage was to have been on January 14. Miss Chapman wae then a handsome woman of 20. She was the niece and adopted daughter of a Jute manufacturer. A month after his disappearance there appeared (February 10, 1892) In a London newspaper an obituary advertisement 'hat Mr Lidderdale had died on January 30 In "Miss B, A. 11. Vining's yacht Foresight," as the result of an accident on January 8 while alighting from a carriage when in motion. '" -* " WAS TRUE TO TOO." Br will, dated March 5. 1890, Mr Lidderdale had left all his property to Miss Chapman. After the obituary announcement there reached her a registered envelope, addressed by an unknown hand, containing £000 in bank notes and a visiting card of MlsH Vining. bearing on the back the words in Mr Lidderdale's writing " was true to you." The court has been several times asked since the autumn of 1907 to presume the death of Mr Ltdderdale for probate purposes, but on the opposition of two insurance companies, with each of which he had a policy for £1.000, the application has been rrfnsed on the gronnd of insufficient evidence of death, the last occasion being March 24. 1010. The mystery of Miss Vining is just as great. Whether abe ever existed has been in d_mbt. He used to say she was a beautiful Creole. No- such yacht as the Foresight has been traced: who sent Miss Chapman the £500 is not known.