AN AUCKLAND HEIRESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 30

AN AUCKLAND HEIRESS.

CLAIAI TO VALUABLE ENGLISH ESTATE (From Gup. Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, May 15. The claimant to one ot the wealthiest .estimates in London is at present living in Auckland. She is Miss Garvey, ot 266 Jervois road. li was by reading in the New Zealand Herald of Saturday last of another claimant at present resident in London that Miss Garvey was inuuced to tell of her family’s connection with the fortune. - The property involved is the Angell estates, which include about 60 miles of South London. The area lies principally between Kennington and Croydon, embracing Brixton. Streatham, Stockwell, Lambeth, and Balham. All these districts are very closely populated, and the rent roll to-day must be enormous. It is to this princely estate that Miss Garvey avers she is one of the heirs. It is 140 years since the original owner, John Angell, died, but Alisa Garvey says her father possesses papers, deeds, and documents showing an unbroken descent from the man who made a will so carelessly in 1774 that his estate has been in Chancery ever since. No legal action has so far placed any of Angell’s descendants in possession. “Yes. my father has all the deeds complete,’’ said Miss Garvey this morning. “I have had it drummed into my ears since 1 was a baby that we were heirs to the Angell millions, and vet, although we have all this money, or the right to it, I have to go out to work. It makes me feel angry with fate, but you never know how life, will work.” She proceeded more hopefully, “I may be lifted from comparative poverty to millions. Father made a fight for the property some 20 years ago before coming out to New Zealand, hut he had not enough money to continue the action, and had to abandon it. He is now living with my brother at Waikaia, in Otago.” Alis 9 Garvey traces her descent from Aliss Angell, a daughter of the original John Angell. “Aliss Angell,” said Miss Garvey, “married a Hatfield. A daughter of this union married a. Wad dins ton. of Kettlethorp Hall, Lincolnshire. My great grandmother was a. child of this marriage, and she married the late Canon Garvey, of Lincoln Cathedral. His son and my grandfather was the Rev. J. Garvey, of Fullbeck, Lincoln. Finally there is his son and my father, John Francis Garvey My mother was a niece of the late. Dr Waddington, formerly practising in Waikato." Mr and Mrs Garvey thus both trace bark through the Waddington* and Hatfields to the original Angell. Other members

°f the. . family in Now Zealand are Misg Garvey’s married sister, at Saddle Hill, Dunedin, and three brothers. Air Waddington Garvey, of Te Awamutu ; Mr Garvey, a ' teller in the P. r New Zealand, Dunedin; and the one mentioned earlier as being with his father at Waikaia. If they could press their claim to a successful issue they would be the wealthiest family m Vp\v Zealand. John Angell died in 1784. Since then here have been several lawsuits relating o Ins will. Indeed, that is not surprising «hen its contents are examined. The will, iu . IP ; ,<? ated September, 1774, gave to e Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Archbishop of York tor the time being yearly sums of £ICO out of John Angell’s estates at Ewell and -ambeth, £350 out of “collections of the bjpurn Lights at Newcastle, and £250 out of lighthouses at Sunderland.” These sums T e }' e to be held in trust and to be paid half-yearly for the support of a college or society of seven decayed or unprovided gentlemen by descent, two clergymen, an organist, six singing men, 12 choristers, a verger, a chapel clerk, and three domestic servants namely, a butler, a baker, and a groom. The seven beneficiaries were to bo called “gentlemen of St. John’s College, near Stockwell.’’ One of the seven was to lie styled the President. The will provided for “the gentlemen and the two clergymen to eat together,” the charges for their hoard and liquor to be calculated at £26 nor annum each. “Their clothing,” it is added, “was to be light coloured cloth, all of ono colour.” for which and for a hat, “which shall have narrow gold lace.” is allowed about £5 per annum. This was the style of hat which John Angell himself usually wore The gentlemen w or® to be eti-wn out of the counties of Surrey, Kent, Northampton. Somerset, Sussex. Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincoln, Northumberland. Stafford, Salop. Hertford. Leicester, Bedford, Cambridge, Buckingham and Wrorc»y."r, c a,;> r :Krr.. p.vooknand Carnarvon. John Angell left £6OOO to build the college in the middle of a piece of gr.mnd at Stockwell, called Burdenbush. If it were not built m his lifetime, it was to be commenced immediately after his burial. Tf the college should be dissolved by the Government the will provided that the revenues should revert to the possessors of the estate. The college at Stockwell has never been built.