WINDFALL FOR CHARITY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume 1, Issue 3, 9 February 1914, Page 12

WINDFALL FOR CHARITY.

TURN OF FORTUNE'S WHEEL. HEIR TO QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS. In the circumstances attending; the funeral service was- held at ■: St. George's, Hanover Square, a moralist might have found a text for. musing on the odd changes and chances., of, life, comments the London "News." The young man was. Mr., Geoffrey Charles* Ansell, and his death, due tor • a mishap of. the Cresta Run during the winter sports two years ago,- mean*- -: that a'fortune of a> quarter-of. a '.mit-;--;; lion- will- fall- to Various London? eharir \ : .S. -ties.'./ : ~ 'r'--. ''-.- - .■"•<;'•" J, \>'i''/'■ \ ■■*•'■? "r'yi "Mr Ansell?. who • was bu-tv 17, / .-was** W: the heir of the late Mr Charles Ansell;" a stockbroker, whose firm reaped great..•".. profits from the South African gold boom in 1895. When he died. 10 yjcarsv- f laterr his net personality- was. swfrrav,...,. at £305,000, and two ,of Jbus.. Mr.' Maukiewicz- and- Mr. *Tollermanen weTe among the'beneficiaries under Ins-' 'will,- and two of Ms trustees. : _ ; A tragic fate seems to have ovpV shadowed the fortune. Mr Ansell had just bought the Ministe.E House; estate at 1 Harpenden when he died, in r the ' ' prime of life, in July, 1905, .'and his two partners, to whom legacies of £IO,OOO each were left in the event of his son's death, are neither of them aKye to-day. All the members of the firm have" gone in a few years, and all of them at comparatively early ages. The bequests, subject to several an-. - nuities (including one of. £2,000 a year to Mrs Ansell) are as follow: — £50,000 to King Edward's Hospital Fund. " '. . £25,000 to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty- toChildren.' • i. , £25,000 to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. £IO,OOO each to Charing Cross, St. Thomas's, St. Bartholomew's, Guy's, St. George's, Westminster, .the Middlesex, and the London Hospitals. £4,000 each to 18 other hospitals. £1.500 for holidays for London's poor children. £SOO each to the poor-boxes of 13 metropolitan police courts. . £aoo each to the - Charity Organisation Society, London Mendicity 'Society,"' Children's Fresh Mission, Children's Country Holidays Fund, and the Ragged School Union. None of these, of course, would have been payable had Mr Geoffrey Ansell lived four years longer. Another direction in the will Tva? that Mr Anscll's favourite horse should be shot and not sold. The accident of which he was the victim occurred through his losing control of his toboggan during his second ride. It is supposed that he had chosen, a toboggan that was too heavy for him and it ran away, throwing him into the Cresta Leap. '. An operation was found necessary, and appeared to have been successful, but Mr Ansell's health, never robust, did not recover fully from the shock-