STRATHCONA ESTATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 270, 13 November 1926, Page 9

STRATHCONA ESTATE.

LARGEST LEFT BY WOMAN. WINDFALL FOR GOVERNMENT. LONDON, November 12. What is believed to be the largest estate ever left by a woman in the history of the Empire is that of Lady Strathcona and Mount Royal, who died in August. The estate is certified officially to be of a gross value of £6,749,231, on which death duty amounting to £2,166,780 is payable.

Legacies include £15,000 to a son-in-law, Commander Kithon, £5000 to another son-in-law, Lord Congleton, £25.000 to the Royal Victoria Hospital at Montreal, £4000 each to Lady Strathcona's housekeeper and nurse, and £2000 to her secretary. The rest of the estate is left to Lady Strathcona's children.

Lady Strathcona, who was born in 1854, was the only child of Donald Alexander Smith, who was raised to the peerage in 1897 as Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal. On her father's death in 1914 she succeeded to the barony, by patent issue in 1900 granting succession to her and her heirs male.

Baron Strathcona's huge fortune was amassed in Canada. Born in Scotland in 1820, he went to Canada at 18 years of age, and received a clerkship in the Hudson Bay Campany, rising in the service until in 1868 he "was chief executive officer of the company in North America. It was almost entirely due to his efforts that the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway was successfully carried out. Lord Strathcona was High Commissioner for Canada from 1596 to 1911. He and his cousin. Lord Mount Stephen, set apart a sum of £400.000 for the erection of a free hospital in Montreal in commemoration of Queen Victoria's jubilee (1887). and in 1902 King Edward's hospital fund for London received from them an endowment fund producing £16.000 per annum. Lord Strathcona's daughter was married in ISBS to Dr. J. Bliss. Her son. Captain the Hon. D. S. P. Howard, succeeds to the barony.