MISER’S WEALTH

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20142, 11 January 1940, Page 12

MISER’S WEALTH

FORTUNE OF £5'27,936 FLAW IN WILL FOUND AUSTRALIANS MAY WIN SYDNEY. Dec. 23. Australian relatives of a 94-year-old Eastbourne, England, business man who died in 193(1 leaving nearly £300.000 to charities, and ' who was known to his neighbours as "the meanest man in the world’ have discovered a flaw in the will and will receive at least £BO,OOO from the trustees and the charitable organisations to whom the money was distributed. By sheer luck an Adelaide man discovered he was related to the miser. By an even greater stroke of luck a Melbourne woman, in a chance conversation with a man at. a St. Kilda boarding house, discovered that the will was void. In 1930, Mr. John Henry Diplock, of Semaphore. South Australia, was glancing through a New South Wales provincial paper. The name Caleb Diplock caught his eye in a paragraph reprinted from a London paper, and he read on. The paragraph told him a story of a miser who had died at Eastbourne in March. 1936. leaving more that £500,000. Caleb Diplock. the paragraph said, had inherited wealth from his father, who owned a brewery at Eastbourne, and more money came to him when his brother and sister died.

By dint of saving and scraping, the fortune had grown until it had reached £527,936.

The story ran that Caleb was so mean that when he was chairman of the Eastbourne Gas Company, he changed the day of the company’s meetings so that he could take advantage of a cheap rail ticket. From a picture on his sitting room wall of an hotel at Eastbourne with the name C. Diplock on it, Mr. John Diplock set- out to prove relationship.

Caleb Diplock was a bachelor, and John Diplock had to go back to his grandfather, who incidentally, had 25 children, to find he was a cousin of the miser. Nice Windfalls All his efforts, however, to claim the money failed, and John Diplock and other relatives resigned themselves to the fact that the money had gone for good. 4 In the meantime the three trustees of the estate, who, incidentally, each received £SOOO, had started on their allotted task of distributing £261,000 to deserving charities. In the course of time, hospitals and charities throughout England received nice little windfalls, the largest of which was £BOOO to St. George’s Hospital, London. In all about 150 organisations received assistance.

A year ago the three trustees sat back" in their chairs and smiled happily. Their task, they felt, had been well done. To-dav that smile is gone, for a writ has been issued or behalf of the Australian relatives of Caleb Diplock against the trustees and certain of the charities that received assistance. Word the Cause

The wording of the will was the cause of the upset. After making handsome grants to the trustees and various others, it states: “Shall apply the residue 'or such charitable institution or institutions or other charitable or benevolent object or objects in England.” To the lay mind that seems pretty binding, but to a lawyer who knows his job, it is not. A test case in England recently proved conclusively that the “or” implied doubt, and made the clause void. If Caleb had only used the word “and” everything would have been all r,gh'. This important discovery was made quite by chance. Miss E. Sibley iof St. Kilda, a niece of Caleb Diplock, told an acquaintance at a boarding house of the fortune. The friends sent her to Arthur Robinson and Company, solicitors, who told her, beyond doubt that the will was void Once again the Australian relatives of Caleb Diplock—and there are many—got busy. The fortune had slipped through their fingers, bu' something might still be saved.

The writ against the trustees and charities is the result. But already the trustees, realising their unfortunate position, have stated that if a court order is made out, at least £BO,OOO could be returned —and that’s reckoning without the writ.