QUEER OLD MAN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12304, 19 April 1937, Page 3

QUEER OLD MAN

LEAVES FORTUNE OF £20,000 LIVED WITH HOUSE PULL OF CATS "B.P. Times” .Special Service. —By Air Mail London, March 27 Regular dividend cheques from Australian companies may provide a clue to the next-of-kin of a man who lived among working-class people in Islington, London, and has left a fortune estimated at about £ 20,000 in investments and property. Since so much of his money was invested In Australia, it is thought that he may have had relatives there. For years John Thomas Wilmott, University man, retired bank manager, lived alone except for his housekeeper in a big house. People thought him strange; tales began to spread that he was a miser—tales which were founded ' only on idle gossip—but no one except a few people suspected that he was wealthy. The house was filled with cats which the housekeeper looked after. There were rooms which were stored with lumber. The old bank manager hardly ever spoke to his neighbours, and never mixed with them. Few people came to see him. He dressed in clothes which were of a good cut. but he always looked shabby. Possibly about three people were aware of his secret. One was the manager of a shop where (or years Mr Wilmott changed the cheques he received from dividends. “They used to range from £ 2 to £7,” the shopkeeper stated. "They were from a couple of dozen different holdings, and I don’t suppose he changed all the cheques with n l6 - -X, A A "Many of them were with Australian companies. “In his early days I understood, he had studied for the Church. His housekeeper was devoted to him. He always said ne would see that she was provided for in his will when he made one. But he kept putting it off and putting it off and died without making one.”