ELDERLY MAN’S WILL

Southland Times, Issue 24599, 22 November 1941, Page 8

ELDERLY MAN’S WILL

EFFORT TO SECURE, PROBATE PROPERTY BEQUEATHED TO CITY (P.A.) AUCKLAND, November 21. An exhaustive search of the late Mr Joseph Partington’s house and the old windmill failed to reveal any trace of a will. In a statement issued to the Press today Mr C. W. M. Wills, Partington’s solicitor, explained that under the terms of a will prepared in 1936 the mill and all Partington’s property was bequeathed to the Auckland City Council, providing that the old mill was kept in good working order and never destroyed or used for other purposes. The other buildings were to be kept in repair until past repair, then demolished and laid out in lawns, trees and shrubs. In the meantime house rents were to maintain the property, the whole area to be known as Partington Park. Early Auckland photographs, prints and paintings were bequeathed to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. “It now appears,” says the solicitor’s statement, “that during a period of illhealth in the latter part of 1940, a firm

of land agents whom Partington employed temporarily to collect rents took him to their solicitors, where he signed another will, which was the same, word for word, as that prepared in 1936 with two exceptions: (1) These two land agents were appointed sole executors and trustees; and (2) they were appointed sole agents for their respective lives for letting and collecting rents from all properties devised to the City Council. The existence of this will was not known to me until after Partington’s death.” It cannot be denied, continues the statement, that Partington’s powers were declining during the last two years or so, but his fixed determination to preserve the mill and surrounding land for all time • is so well known to Mr Wills, who has acted for him continuously for ten years and saw him frequently on business, even a day or so before his death, that Mr Wills is taking immediate steps to uphold Partington’s intentions and wishes as expressed in 1936. Application is being made forthwith to the Supreme Court for probate in solemn form of the 1936 will, but the matter cannot be decided until the next session in February. In the meantime Mr Wills is asking the Supreme Court to appoint an interim administrator to guard the estate.

Joseph Partington, proprietor of Auckland’s famous windmill, built on an elevated site near the city 97 years ago, was found dead on Tuesday in his residence close to the mill. He was 83 years old and unmarried and for the last three years lived alone. While a solicitor was searching for a photograph at the request of newspaper representatives, he found bundles of bank notes in envelopes, tins and other receptacles, mostly in the locked bottom drawers of the dressing table. The bedroom door was locked. A quantity of silver and copper coins was also found. The money discovered has not yet been junted.