A PECULIAR WILL

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 26, 31 January 1923, Page 9

A PECULIAR WILL

There were most unusual features in the will of a man who died in Melbourne last year. The will, which has just been lodged for probate, is not out of the ordinary so far as it concerns testator's personal property. Its interest arises out of the peculiar power that had rested with him under the will of his father The testator had a general power of ap pointment in the distribution of £2000 and the investments thereof under the will of his father, James Messenger, late of Bonhams, parish of Neatham, county of Southampton, dated 12th December 1879.

After making provision for the payment of six small bequests, amounting to £110 ss, the testator directed his trustee, Mr. Basil J. Parkinson, to pay the income of the residue of the trust estate half-yearly to the bell-ringers of the Upper Frsyle Parish Church, county of Hampshire, for the time being, to be applied by them in the following manner:!-" They shall keep in proper" condition and repair the graves of my father and mother, and shall on 22nd. day of January in each year ring a muffled peal of bells in the parish church, after which ringing they may pay one-eighth of the current half-yearly income for the purpose of providing for themselves a supper, or otherwise for distribution among themselves, and shall apply the balance towards the maintenance in alternate halfyears of the oldest poor man and womnii then residing at Froyle, the choice o( such persons being within the absolute discretion of the said bell-ringers for the time being."