WAS IT SUICIDE?

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 120, 15 February 1926, Page 9

WAS IT SUICIDE?

DEATH OF SHACKLETON’S SUPPORTER QUESTION FOR COURT OF CHANCERY London, February 12. - The manner in wliich the late John Quiller Rowett, the friend and financial supporter of the late Sir Ernest Shackleton, met his death, has been the subject of an investigation in the Chancery Division in an action in which Rowett, Leaky and Company, a citv firm of which he was managing diiector, is suing the Scottish Provident Institution to recover £30,000 in reipect to policies Rowett took out. Defendants denv liability and rely on a clause of the policies exempting them from payment in the event of the assured committing suicide within the date of the issue of the policies. The clause, however, provided that such suicide would not affect the interests of bona fide onerous holders. The Rcwett policies were taken out on May 6, 1924, and Rowett was found dead with a piece of unknotted cord round his neck on October 1, 1925. The point at issue is whether deceased committed suicide by hanging. The plaintiff states that Rowett was indebted to his firm for over £lOO,OOO in April, 1924, which he was quite unable to discharge, and it was with regard to this fact that the company took out the policies, for which reason they are bona fide onerous holders. Counsel mentioned that the financing of the Shackleton expedition cost Rowett £70,000, and he was utterly insolvent at the time of his death. The Judge decided that Rowett did commit suicide, and counsel for the plaintiffs then proceeded to argue that thev were entitled to succeed as bona fine' onerous holders. He said this was an English contract and he would objec* to Scottish lawyers deposing as regards the meaning of the phrase “onerous holders.” Scotch was a foreign language, and an interpreter might be needed. Judgment was reserved. —Reuter.