WOMAN DOCTOR’S PETITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 9

WOMAN DOCTOR’S PETITION

DIVORCE PLEA FAILS HUSBAND WENT TO CANADA (From Our Own Correspondent? (By Air Mail) LONDON, Dec. 15. A petition for divorce by Dr Helen Isabel Winifred Taylor, of Alderley road. Wilmslow, Cheshire, a woman doctor, was dismissed at Manchester Dr Taylor’s case was that her husband left her in 1928 and went to Canada. Mr Justice Tucker said there had been no desertion, although an endeavour had been made to make the court think so.

The marriage took place at Whittington. Shropshire, in 1919, when Mr Taylor was an officer in the Cheshire Regiment, and there was one child. The suit was not defended.

The judge said that the petition was made on an allegation that Mr Taylor deserted his wife for three years without cause. There was also an allegation that during many years before February 15, 1928, there were continual quarrels between them, and that Mr Taylor had on many occasions threatened to go abroad. On February 18, 1928, Mr Taylor went to Canada, telling his wife that he would “see how things went.” Until about 1930 he occasionally corresponded with her. From 1932 until February. 1938, there was no news from the husband, nor did he make any contribution towards his wife’s support after 1927. Friendly With Governess

Dr Taylor had said that subsequently her husband, used, for his own purposes, £2OO which had been invested, in the name of their daughter, in National Savings Certificates. She had cause to complain of his conduct with other women, but was unable to obtain evidence, and went on. living with him. That conduct culminated in 1928. when Mr Tavlor became very friendly with a governess his wife had employed, for their daughter. There was an incident when Dr Taylor saw him leaving the governess’s bedroom when she was standing at the door in her dressing gown and Mr Taylor was in pyjamas. Dr Taylor dismissed the governess.

Dr Taylor had sworn that in 1932 she wrote to her husband offering to sell her practice in this country and to go out and join him in Canada.

The judge then read a letter of March 1, 1932, written by Mr Taylor to his wife. Passages were:— . "I wonder if you ever put yourself in my position—a man being kept by his wife?

"With regard to Mick, you’re asking too much. You say you could tell her that I had died. Is not that just too cruel?

"... Do you think I never loved her and don’t love her now? ” “ Whether or no the phrases of affection were genuine, or to be relied upon. I do not know.” said the judge, " but I am convinced that the letter was not sent in answer to a letter from Dr Taylor offering to go and live with him in Canada.

‘ *t looks much more like a letter sent in answer to an application that Mr Taylor should provide some evidence on which a divorce petition could be founded.”