REMAINED TRUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 153, 30 June 1937, Page 9

REMAINED TRUE.

GREAT LOVE STORY.

JILTED FORTY YEARS AGO. i affection did not die. I (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON. June 12. Mr. John Thomas Hedley, of Windermere, late of Beckenham. jilted by Jessie Broughton, a Gaiety girl, 40 years ago, left £655,129. Thereby hangs a tale. Jessie Broughton died in 192G, but the will nowr proved shows that the ageing affection did not die too. Certain colliery interests and some property are left to two nieces, l»ut the residue of the Hediev fortune was bequeathed to Phyllis Harriet Wright Broughton. Hedley expressed a wish t<> be cremated Slid the allies to he enclosed in ,an urn and disposed of as Mi?.-; Broughton t-hould decide. For 40 years Hedley had been a recluse. His will shows how remote he was from parsing events. He built a bi<r house at Hayes, Kent, long ago, for Miss Broughton. When she declined to marry him he vowed to leave the mansion empty. While he epent the years tending the or his romance. Mis* Broughton married Dr. Robert Thomson, of Clifjtonville. Margate, who died in 11*24. i When she died, two years after him, she was buried beside him at BrompI ton. j Mr. Hedley lived to be S3. | He came to London occasionally, and i walked through the echoing room* of jthe mausoleum of his love, pensive in (the bridal suite. For o0 years he sent gift*, to Miss Broughton. but lie did not «-ee her after they parted friends but nothing more. Trustee* and executors will deal coldly with the finance of a monumental love affair. The Treasury will take £295,117, and [the rest will go to whoever it belongs,