FAR AFIELD

Southland Times, Issue 20663, 19 April 1929, Page 8

FAR AFIELD

HEIRS TO A FORTUNE.

CLAIMANT FOUND IN DUNEDIN.

(Special to the Times.) Dunedin, April 18. More than 100 years ago there were two brothers in England named Mansfield. One was a shipbuilder and the other sought his fortune in Tasmania. The brother in England married twice, but there were no children. He removed to Germany, built up a large shipbuilding business and died there. The will provided that his wife should use the interest accruing on the money left to her, and that on her death it should revert to the Mansfield family. The wife, who was evidently not pleased with the will, tied up the money as she was entitled to do under the German law. The time has now expired. The other brother who came out to Tasmania and took up a grant of land at Bridgewater, had six sons and four daughters. One of the grand-daughters is Mrs Edith Hedderwick, of Moonee Ponds, New South Wales, and there are other descendants now very numerous in various parts of Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand. There is a claimant at St. Kilda, Dunedin, in the person of Mrs Alexander Stuart, of 4 Mills street, whose mother was a cousin of Mrs Hedderwick. Mrs Hedderwick explained to a reporter in Sydney how she had come to hear that the heirs were being sought. She said that she had been informed in April of last year of an article which had appeared in an Irish paper. This article which was headed, “Is Your Name Mansfield?” stated that somewhere about 1798 a young man named Mansfield from Ardmore County, Waterford, had emigrated to Liverpool to seek his fortune. He made a little money and then went to Germany where he established a shipbuilding yard which. later developed into a big undertaking. His heirs the article stated, were being sought to claim the fortune which.he had left. It is believed that the descendants of Mr Mansfield are represented in England and that the negotiations are proceeding satisfactorily.