SISTER'S DEVOTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 29 (Supplement)

SISTER'S DEVOTION

MONEY LEFT TO REGIMENT Deep attachment of an 80-vear-old woman to her only brother is revealed in the action of Miss Mary Alice Leckie, whose will, lodged at the Commissary Office in Edinburgh recently, leaves the bulk of her £20,646 estate to the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment. « Miss Leckie died at a private hotel at North Berwick, where she had lived for 20 years. Her brother, Major Norman Houston Leckie, retired from the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment in 1889, and died 31 years ago. In 1905 she erected a memorial to him in All Saints' Church, Maidstone. After making several private bequests, Miss Leckie bequeathed the whole of her private means and estate, with the exception of personal effects or belongings, to the officer commanding the depot of the regiment at the Barracks, Maidstone, for the compassionate fund for the Ist and 2nd Battalions. The bequest is subject to the condition that the officer commanding the -depot shall see that the memorial to her brother is maintained in good order and preservation. According to Mr. John Campbell, manager of the private hotel where Miss Leckie died, she was a woman of the "old school," and could not easily make friends in her new life. "She was so devoted to her brother," said Mr. Campbell, "that she gave up her chances of marriage because she did , not like to think of him being ■ alone." Miss Leckie'3 brother joined the second battalion of the Queen's Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment in 1872 and retired as major in 1889. He fought in Africa in 1881 and died in March, 1905.