MILLION POUND TOWN

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 17 October 1911, Page 3

MILLION POUND TOWN

Under the will of Mr William Whiteley, who was murdered in his shop at Westbourne Grove, London, on January 24, 1907, a sum of £1,000,000 was left to build houses for 700 poor aged p&ople. The scheme for building these houses was furthered last month by Mr Justice Even in the Chancery Court.

It was a condition of the bequest that the homes were to be in one of the western suburbs of London and within ten miles of Charing Cross. _ The trustees met with many difficulties in finding a site, and one of the sites proposed—the Shirley House estate, near Croydon—was rejected in the Chancery Court when an application for its approval was made. The efforts of the trustees were continued, and Mr Justice Even sanctioned the selection of a site between Walton and Weybridge, and close to Esher and Burhill.

Mr P. O. Lawrence, K.C., who made the application on behalf of the trustees, said that the site contained 220 acres, and would be laid out on the lines of a garden city. The work would be put in hand at once. The trustees appointed in the will were the late Mr Whiteley's two sons, the Bishop of London, Lord Sandhurst, Sir Walpole Greenweil, and Mr W. E. Gillett. The following were appointed as additional trustees: The Hon. A. G. Brodrick, Sir Edward W. D. Ward, Sir F. E. Coates, M.P., and the Bishop of Stepney. Mr Whiteley also recommended the trustees to make some small gift, pecuniary or otherwise, to each inmate of the homes on Michaelmas Day—that day being his birthday. The money to found the fund was raised by a great sale of shares in the firm. On June 11, 1909, 829,143 shares were offered to the public, this being probably the largest number of - shares in any one company ever disposed of by the executors of a will.