SHARE IN TRUST FUND

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 4 March 1935, Page 5

SHARE IN TRUST FUND

WOMANS CLAIM SUCCEEDS. MARRIAGE QUESTION INVALID. (By Telegraph— Press Association.) TIMARU, March 2. Judgment declaring that Isabelle Ellis Pattison, Auckland, spinster was entitled to a one-third share in a trust fund now valued at £19,227 established by the late Captain Henry Cain, formerly of Timarn, on February 26, 1870, was given by Mr. Justice Johnston in the Supreme Court yesterday. Plaintiff based her claim to participate in the trust fund on the ground that she was the daughter of Jane Ellis Espie, step-daughter of Captain Cain. Her’ mother, plaintiff contended, on the death of her first husband, Willlinm Johnston Newton, married Jonathan Melvin Pattison, who plaintiff asserted was her father. The defence was founded on the allegation that at the time .Jane Ellis Newton married Pattison on July 5, 1886, her husband William Newton was still living, that the second marriage was invalid, and that the plaintiff was illegitimate and so was not entitled to a share under the deed of settlement of 1870, which related to legitimate children only. The judge found no evidence sufficient to convince him that Newton was alive in July, 1886, and presumed him dead, and as it was a. legitimate inference that Mrs. Newton did not in tend to commit bigamy he should upheld the second marriage. The defence that the second marriage was invalid failed, and the plaintiff was entitled to a third share in the settled fund of 1870.