FRIENDS ROBBED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

FRIENDS ROBBED

Headmistress Now in Gaol As Sequel to Fin EDUCATIONAL ventures, a trust company, a building society, and £132,000 of the British public's money were mentioned at the 010 Bailey, London, when a round-faced, 55-year-old former London County Council girls' school headmistress stood in the dock. At 40, it was related, the woman quit her classrooms to blossom forth as a " financier." Eventually she , rented a house in London's fashionable Regent s Park district, drove her car, and successfully carried on her pose as a business woman with educational ideals. But she was a crook, and for eight months one of Scotland Yard's most astute officers, Detective-Inspector Thomas Dolan, was engaged investigating her activities.

Detective - inspector DOLAN had the satisfaction •of knowing his work was completed when he heard the woman, Gertrude Blanche Willcocks, sent ito prison for two years. She was convicted of misapplying £23,000 belonging to the City of London Building Society.

One, 41-year-old Olive Catherine Isabella Evelagh, stood beside Miss Wilt cocks in the dock. She was acquitted on all counts. Three Friends Miss Evelagh was an assistant at tho Hampstead school where Miss Willcocks was head. They became friends, 'p •; Then Miss Willcocks met a Mr. Basil Walter Leefe, a retired tea merchant. She rented-a huge house in Sussex Place, on the fringe of Regent's Park. The rental was £650 a vear. The three went to live there. To look after them six servants were employed. Laundry bills came to £250 a year, and altogether the upkeep of the house cost Miss "Willcocks £3OOO a year. ])etective-Inspector Dolan told the Court of the investigations he carried out. His evidence was a recital of Miss Willcocks' activities as given above, fs? "Parted With Their All" He told how she induced many investors to part with their all. She had advertised offering 10 per cent re. turn to investors. Many who came forward were retired teachers, and now found themselves jxmnilcss. She spent £4500 in advertising the building society. Leefe died last year. Had he lived, he would have been standing in the dock with Miss Willcocks. He wai named in the charges as conspiring with her. Defending, Mr. Vernon Gattie pleaded that Miss Willcocks was now herst*lf penniless. The trial lasted five days, and sentence was passed as stated.

The society, a concern run solely by women, is now in liquidation. When she left her job as head teacher in a Hampstead school. Miss Willcocks floated company after company, finally building up the £132,000 City of London Building Society. The Recorder, Mr. Gerald Dodson, commenting on the secret of her exploits, suggested it might be her_classroom manner, which, ho declared, not only controlled the society, but all members of the board and everyone else, apparently, with whom she came in contact. Benefited by £20,000 As Miss Willcocks stood in the dock, simply dressed and austere looking, it was hard to believe that by her manipulation of various properties her harjf balance benefited by more than £20,000. Iu 1930 she acquired an option for £60,000 on St. Dunstan's, Regent's Park, now the house of the Countess

Haugwitz-Reventlow, formerly Miss Barbara Hutton, the United States millionairess. Miss Willcocks paid £2000; the balance was mortgaged.; To promote her scheme for turning the property into a high-class school for girls over 16, she floated many companies—which proved unsuccessful. The mortgagee finally foreclosed on her with £49,000 outstanding. She was adjudged bankrupt with liabilities of £70,000. ; "Fifty—But Undaunted" That vas in 1933. She was 50 —but undaunted. The "Educational Property Trust" next came into being. She could not become a director, since she was an undischarged bankrupt. Starting in one room in Drayton House, Gordon Street, Bloomsbury, the trust expanded into a suite of five. It acquired property with the idea of building schools. In July, 3934, only six months after the trust, the City of London Building Society was launched—with Miss Willcocks as manageress. From 1934 to 1936 the public subscribed £132,000 to the society. Nominees of the Education Property Trust —alleged to be fictitious—bought seven properties, five near Harrogate, one in Sussex, one at Peterborough. Fraudulent Conversion

At figures greatly above the original purchase price, the properties were conveyed to the trust—in realitv. Miss Willcocks.

The trust then went to the building society—again Miss Willcocks—to take up substantial mortgages—the public's money.

When the purchase price had been paid the balance was left over for the trust.

It was in this way that Miss Willcacka fraudulently converted . the £23,000 mentioned in the charge to her own use.

But the directors, who knew nothing of this private plan, became suspicious. They could never see hooks, and complained to the police.