MISSPENT FORTUNE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 237, 6 October 1936, Page 3

MISSPENT FORTUNE.

TURNED TO CRIME. 83-YEAR-OLD AUSTRALIAN. WILSON'S MANY CONVICTIONS. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, September 12. An 83-year-old Australian who dissipated his share of a £70,000 fortune; married into a titled family and had served 10 years' penal servitude for forging Bank of England notes, was at the Old Bailey, London, this week sentenced to three years' penal servitude for possessing ai«l uttering counterfeit coins. The prisoner, James Wilson, was arrested while changing a counterfeit half-crown in, an automatic change machine at Piccadilly tube station. When searched three half-crowns, three florins, ten shillings and three sixpences, all counterfeit, were found in his possession. A large collection of moulds for making coins was found at his address in St. John's Wood. A detective recounted the story of tlio old mail's career. He said: "Wilson was born in Australia in 1853. His father, a grazier and sheep farmer in West Australia, died about 40 years ago and his five sons inherited between £00,000 and £70,000. The prisoner owned racehorses in Australia and through his racing and gambling he lost all his money. Then he became a companion of confidence tricksters, finally disappearing from Melbourne in 1893. Wilson married a daughter of the late Sir Anthony Colin Brownless, an Australian. Bis wife is dead. "Tiie officer added that when Wilson was arrested he refused to give his address- and added that he would take his secret to his grave." The officer said that Wilson had been sentenced as follows: —1903: Five years, penal servitude for theft. 1012: Ten years' penal servitude for forging Bank of England notes. On that occasion, too, 122 counterfeit sovereigns were found in a stone jar at his lodgings. 1925: Three years' penal servitude for receiving stolen property. 1933: Four months' hard labour for possessing counterfeit coin.