SPANISH FORTUNE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4952, 6 February 1937, Page 2

SPANISH FORTUNE

DUNEDIN MAN’S CLAIM. WILL OF SOLDIER UNCLE. As a result of the belated translation of a will made in a Spanish hospital in 1921, steps may be taken to prove the claim of Mr. J. H. Coughlan, a Dunedin tobacconist, to a share in an estate that was reported at that time to be worth a sum in excess of £30,000. The facts so far as it has been possible to ascertain them are said to be that Enrique de Fonseca Coughlan, who was an uncle of Mr. J. H. Coughlan and was formerly a member of the famous British regiment known as The Buffs, went to Spain and became a naturalised Spanish citizen. In 1921 he became involved in a rebellion and was severely wounded. The probabilities are that his part in the rising would have re_

suited in the death sentence had he been in a condition that would have enabled him to face a court martial, but death from his wounds intervened while he was an inmate of the hospital of San Juan de Dios in Madrid. While he was in hospital he was befriended by the prison chaplain, whom he named as executor of a will which he made in the hospital shortly before his death. The will provided that his daughter, Anna de Fonseca, then a minor, should be his sole heiress, and that her guardian should be “Don” J. H. Coughlan, his nearest relative. The will made a gift of one-fourth of all testator's goods to his kinsman, Mr. Coughlan, on the express condition that he protected the daughter and afforded her such material assistance as the executor might require. Mr. Coughlan was advised by his niece of the death of his uncle, and subsequently he re- ; ceived a letter from the prison chaplain asking him whether he was pre-

pared to accept the responsibility of guardianship. He is at present unaware of the whereabouts of his niece or of the extent to which the situation may have been changed by the present war in Spain.