Heir to £130,000

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7120, 18 January 1930, Page 7

Heir to £130,000

CLAIM FOR ADOPTED SON. Claims are being made on behalf of a 15-ycar-old bay working in a Sheffield steelworks that he is the missing ■heir to the fortune of £130,000 left by William Emery, a Femmington (New Jcrscv) merchant, says the Manchester Guardian.. The boy is Leonard Charles Grav Reed, the adopted son of Charles Ernest Reed, an unemployed _ man living in Weedon Street, Sheffield. . Mr Reed believes that Leonard was given away by Mr Emery’s daughter to conceal her marriage to a man of whom her parents disapproved. The baby, it is stated was born m Washington and was handed to a woman with the request that she should find a homo for him and never lot his identity become known. If the missing child is not found, the fortune will go to his cousin, Mr Vivian Cornelius, who is now living in England. Mr Reed said that he adoptod Leonard in August 1914. He first answered an advertisement in a local newspaper which gave a box office address. A woman who gave an address at Harpurhey, Manchester, brought the baby over and paid Reed £lO. She said that the child’s name was Leonard Charles Gray and his parents held a high position and were well-known in the United States. The mother did not want to see the child again, said the woman, and Reed was given a document renouncing rights in the child and signed “Alice Gray.” The clothes which the baby wore were of high quality, and its bottle boro the mark “Washington, U.S.A.” The date of the birth was stated to bo May 20, 1914.