ONCE A WEALTHY MAN

Evening Star, Issue 22276, 29 February 1936, Page 6

ONCE A WEALTHY MAN

A bachelor, aged 82, who lived in humble circumstances in Stepney, and was severely injured in a street accident, was, it now transpires, at one time a wealthy man owing property in Russia valued at £50,000. The man, Joseph Kirkham, lived in a furnished room in Gold street. He was knocked down by a motor car in the log, and taken to the Mile End Hospital, suffering from bruises and concussion. He became dangerously ill, and an SOS was broadcast for Richard, James, and Walter Kirkham, his three brothers.

His landlady, Mrs Olive Smith, told a ‘ Daily Mail ’ reporter :■ — “ When I visited him to-day, for some reason, perhaps because he was very ill, he told me his life story. I had realised before through his good speech and the fact that he iised to translate foreign broadcasts on the wireless, that he was a man who had seen better days. “ He told me he was born in Blackburn and that when he was four years old his father took him and his three brothers and sister to Switzerland. “ His sister, whose name he said was cither Rosetta or Rosina, worked for the Salvation Army and died as a result of a street accident. One of his brothers—l believe it was James—died while travelling to the United States. “Mr Kirkham told me that he worked originally as an engineer. I believe he was engaged in the transport of machinery to the Continent, particularly Russia. “He told me that at one time he possessed property worth £50,000 in Russia, but lost it all. Now ho has nothing but his old age pension and out-relief.”