A MILLIONAIRE’S LIFE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4295, 2 March 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

A MILLIONAIRE’S LIFE

, A MILLION LEFT FOE. MISSIONS. , A rcccut cable message announced the ! death of Robert Arthington, of Leeds, , and the fact that deceased had left | nearly a million, sterling; to two London ’ Missionary societies. From latest home files it appears that the circumstances connected with tiro bequest are remarkI able. i A ‘'Lloyd’s’’ representative has interi viewed one of the executors of the dead ; millionaire’s • estate, and has gathered from him some interesting particulars of ; his career, which was chiefly noteworthy for a- rigid, almost desperate, self-denial in tire interests of foreign missions. Mr Robert Arthington. vim was 77 when ho died, was the son of Quaker parents, who were very well off and extremely pious people. His father was for many years a brewer in Leeds, and owned extensive premises, including \ a roomy brick house attached to the j waitings. His religious views undorgo- ; a change, Mr Arthington, senior, from _ purely conscientious motives, relinquished his business in the brewery : trade, and the property and building's j there wore allowed to run almost into i decay, until, for a. good round sum, they were eventually bought up by the Midland Railway company, who pulled down the mattings and erected troorl warehouses. Partly from this sale" Mr Arthington was able to leave his sou Robert, when he died, about £200,000. Then began the strange self-sacrifices of Robert Arthington. After the death of his parents he continued to live, for the most part, quite alone in the old family house in Hunslet, and subsequently in a house he had built in Headingley ; but always in the strictest economy, his object being to save money, which might afterwards go towards spreading the Gospel in foreign lands. Though brought up in affluence he denied hjmself nearly everything, and it is said that he would often buy a chop and make it last three days, grilling it the first day, eating the remainder cold the second day, and converting the bone into soup for the third. During ali this tim© ho was making very investments, from which he amassed his fortune,- and which he has now bequeathed, all but a tenth—-which goes to cousins—to the Baptist and London Missionary societies. In 1876 he gave a steamer to the former society for use on the Groat Congo river, and also made large gifts to other missionary organisations for penetrating unknown fields in Africa. He conceived the' idea of throwing a chain of missions right across the Dark Continent.

3fr Arthington spent the last three years cf his life at Teigmnoutli, where, at the hands of lr>. attendants, be consented in h.is old age* to receive sonic of tho comforts which he had long denied himself. Surrounded by his missionary literature he still kept his mind fixed upon the one object, and in his last days though very feeble, his mental faculties remained clear enough for him to intimate which passages in the Bible he wished read out. In bis will, which has been proved at £930,000., lie makes various suggestions to tho missionary societies a.s to how the money shall ho spent. He directs, for instance, that “to every tribe of mankind which has thorn not, and which speaks a language apart from all others, accurate copies of at least the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke, and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles printed in the tribe’s language shall b e riven, for teaching at least- ten or a dozen persons of such tribe to read.” Wherever practicable, these suggestion.? will be carried out.