MYSTERY LEGACY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 16

MYSTERY LEGACY

A VILLAGE PUZZLE/

The people of the old-world Berkshire town of Wantage are perplexed at news from Sydney (N.S.W.) that Mr. Walter Kirby, an Australian tenor, has left £14,000 "to be divided equally among - certain public hospitals and charities of Wantage," says the "Daily Telegraph." " * .. • The same report states that the Trustee company applying for probate of the will, has instructed its English agents to, get. into touch with a titled woman whom, toe: testator . requests, should distribute the money. The most searching inquiry failed to j reveal that Mr. Kirby was ever in Wantage or had any associations whatever with this, the birthplace of Alfred the Great. There are those in the town who think Wantage has beeu hoaxed.; : 'Rumour went ahead, and therefore some effort had been made to elucidate the mystery. The register of births for the last 50 years had been examined with a negative result. The roll at the ancient; Grammar School had been searched without success. Old'inhabitants had never heard.the name. But one among them suddenly recalled that Kirby was the name of a family in a village some miles away. A romantic vision of a young emigrant leaving his humble home and making a fortune in Australia was shattered by the head of the family. "None of my people went out there, he said. , NOT THE PATIENT. At the Cottage Hospital, the principal of the three charities in the town. in-, formation was received which, led to a possible clue. The matron, who had been; at the institution thirty years, remembered a Mr. Kirby as a patient : :many years ago. He . was admitted with a dislocated shoulder and left the next day after the injury had been attended to. Was -this to be the case of a debt of gratitude repaid after a quarter of a century? 1 The clue, struck so hopefully,, proved of no avaiL The patient's Christian name turned but to be Frank, and the friend who took him to the hospital on the night of the accident said that he was dead His friend had, he said, one, brother living in another part of the country, but he had never heard of: a member of the family going to Australia. ... ■ There are two other charities in Wantage, both almshouses, one connected with the Church of England and the other, an ancient charity, contrblled by the Governors of the Town Lands. Neither the vicar nor the clerk to the Governors could throw any light on the matter. The report from Sydney states that Mr. -Kirby had left be.quests to religious charities in Melbourne and ,other ■ cities, and made provision for Walter Kirby singing prizes in Melbourne and' Auckland, New Zealand. . The £14,000-for Wantage was tae residue of/his estate. '