An Estate of £3,000,000 in Chancery.

Evening Star, Issue 7247, 25 June 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

An Estate of £3,000,000 in Chancery.

ANOTHER “TICHBORNE” CASE. The ‘ Home News ’ of April 8 states that what is likely to be a cause celebre will probably be tried during the present year by certain persons claiming to be heirs to the Whaddon Hail estates. The maner of Whaddon and Nash is of remote origin, for William Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, was granted the Manor of Wadone by William the Conqueror. He founded about 1084 the Cluniac Priory of St. Faith, at Longueville, in Normandy, and bestowed upon it the church of Whaddon, the tithes of the demesne lands, and of his woods, pannage, and venison, and all other profits from his woodladds and pasturage in Whaddon. The manor and appurtenances descended to Walter, second Earl of Buckingham, on whose death the same escheated to the Crown. It was granted by Henry 11, in 1173 to Humet, Constable of Normandy, and descended to his son, William Humet, who was deprived thereof by King John, and the latter granted it to William Earl of Arundel, and it again reverted to the Crown. In 1243 Henry 111. granted it to John PitzGeoffry. The estates can be traced through many hands down to the year 1761, when they were in the possession of Thomas James Selby, He died unmarried in 1772, having by his will, made in 1768, devised these estates to his right and lawful heir in fee simple, for the better discovery of whom advertisements were to be published. No one, however, has proved to be his right and lawful heir. It appears that all the members of the Selby family who are now living, and of whom the testator was a member, retained the services of a Mr Aldred, of Camberwell, a gentleman engaged in research, to compile such a pedigree as includes every branch of the testator’s family. Mr Aldred has in consequence compiled a huge pedigree, either tracing each branch down to some living person or shown the extinction thereof. In this way counsel have advised that the Court must elect from the numerous claimants such a person as will be deemed to be the right and lawful heir of the testator. .Records have been found which hitherto have either been suppressed or unknown, and among these documents are some original declarations of persons now deceased proving the concealment of, and tampering with, registers and other records. Owing to this startling evidence and the fact that the pedigree is forty-eight square feet in size, and the evidence in weighs several hundredweight, the case will undoubtedly be more notorious than the Tichborne trial. The estates are valued at L 3,000,000, besides a fund in Chancery derived from accumulated rents and profits.