LIVED IN POVERTY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 12

LIVED IN POVERTY

LEFT £156,000 STATE GETS NEARLY ALL |By Air Mail-Hpecial Correspondent) LONDON, 3rd December. More than once called the "meanest man in England” an 86-years-old Bristol bachelor who the day before he died said he could not afford a taxi, was found to have left £156,000. He bequeathed most of it to the Ex- j chequer for reduction of the National Debt. After estate duty has been paid and small bequests met the Exchequer will receive more than £IOO,OOO. Albert John Grave lived in a oneioom lodging in a working-class district of Bristol. He lived frugally on 25s a week. He smoked a clay pipe—hi jars were too dear —and carefully rationed himself to half an ounce of tobacco a week. His midday dinner at his lodgings cost him a shilling. He thought this too expensive and frequently walked to a restaurant where he could buy a cheaper meal. As he was going to the restaurant two months ago he fell. He was taken to hospital where a doctor ordered him home to bed. Next clay he was worse. He would not call a doctor—"can’t afford it”—but his landlady persuaded him to go back to hospital. The doctor, after an examination, allowed him to go back home. "I advise you to take a taxi” he said. Mr Grave replied: "Taxi! Tut, tut. extravagance. I can’t afford a taxi. We’ll walk.” Nftxt day "poor old Mr Grave” was found dead in bed. His will directed his executors to pay four legates of £SO each and to divide £5,000 among charities. And the rest went to the State. "Mr Grave was 86 years old” said his landlady Mrs Nicholls this week, “and his whiskers hung down over his chest. We all thought he was too poor to shave. He scarcely ever let me light a fire in his room.”