MILLIONAIRE IN A VILLA

Evening Star, Issue 21091, 2 May 1932, Page 9

MILLIONAIRE IN A VILLA

WIDOW DISCHARGES WISHES £IOO,OOO GIFT TO CHARITY Mrs I* C. Keene, the widow of ft former director of a British insurance company, who has decided to give £IOO,ODD to charity from the fortune of £1,144,201 left by her husband, Mr J. H. Keene, has stated the reasons which prompted her gifts. “My husband,” Mrs Keene said, “always expressed the wish that charities should benefit very donsiderahly from the fortune he v had made. The will he left was made thirty years ago when he was comparatively a poor man. But before his death last September ha talked to me about what he had intended to give away. So I made up my mind to give £IOO,OOO away with' the firm belief that I should be carrying out his wishes. “My husband took no prominent part in local affairs, spending most,of his time in his garden qr working in connection with the business of the company. He travelled up to town almost daily until he became ill a few, weeks before he died. I intend to continue living here.” Although he was so wealthy, Mr Keene and his wife—there is no family, —lived in a modest villa on the main Chelmsford road. There are only two maidservants in the house, which might easily have been looked upon as the home of a comfortably-situated business man, rather than that of a millionaire.

Mr Keene was of the most retiring disposition, and very few people knew that he was so wealthy. His father was one of the founders of the insurance company, which he entered as a boy.

But in and around Chelmsford Mr Keene was well known for Lis generosity. Friends state that scores of families were receiving money from him weekly until the time of his death, but not even his most intimate friend knew, who, they were.

“ Mr Keene was not the man to let' anyone think he was wealthy,” one friend stated. “If he knew that people had spoken of his generosity he was deeply distressed. He never, in any way, courted publicity. “The decision of Mrs Keene to give away £IOO,OOO is characteristic of her. She and her husband were deeply attached.”