“MAN IN MASK” NOT MISSING HEIR

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 1

“MAN IN MASK” NOT MISSING HEIR

Routine police inquiries into the death of Percy Francis Pascoe, the Halswell recluse known as the “Man in the Mask” have established that he came to New Zealand in the Wakatipu from Australia in 1895. Mr Pascoe suffered a facial disfigurement as a youth, and wore a mask for the remainder of his life. He was 78 when he died.

Mr A J. Pascoe, a naturopath, of Paremata, considered that the Halswell recluse was the missing heir to the “Pascoe millions”, a sum of about £23m said to be held in trust in England because heirs could not be traced. Mr Pascoe believed that the Halswell recluse was the son of John Pascoe, one of the

heirs to the Pascoe fortune, who went to Queensland. However, the police inquiries show that Mr P. F. Pascoe's father was Mr Frederick Pascoe, of Queensland. Mr P. w. Pascoe came to Lyttelton from Sydney in June, 1895. He was then aged 10, and was accompanied by his mother, Mrs Marion Frances Pascoe. Mrs Pas**oe and her son lived in and around Christchurch, and in 1906 Mrs Pascoe married Alfred Barnden, who died at 24 Richmond terrace on November 15, 1947. It thus appears that the Halswell recluse was not the “missing heir” to the “Pascoe millions”-—held to be probably mythical by authorities in England.