JOHN BANKS AND HIS MONEY

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

JOHN BANKS AND HIS MONEY

CHARITIES GOING ON 200 YEARS. LAW CASE BEGUN IN 1725. Strange ghosts from the past centuries sometimes flit through the solemn Court of Chancery (says the Children’s Newspaper.) Memories of kind-hearted John Banks, the Master of the Haberdashers Company over 200 years ago, were, recalled for an hour or two before Justice Farwell in a recent petition by the Company. By his will in 1716 John Banks gave all his estate in Westminster on trust to pay a sum of £220 a year in annuities and charities. The property consisted of leaseholds involving mortgage and other complicated arrangements. In 1725 a question concerning the trust came before the Court of Chancery, which took action several times during the eighteenth century; and when a mortgage of £lO,OOO was repaid in 1792 an order of the Court directed the trustees to pay into Court the balance of the income from that sum so that it should accumulate as provision for expiration of leases. Various changes have since been made in the investment of the sum in Chancery, and in recent years the annual income from the trust fund has been £1543. The Haberdashers Company came to the conclusion that a larger yield was possible from the fund, and they have persuaded the Judge to pay it over to them again. He consented, subject to certain stipulations. So, after 200 years the guardianship of the estate reverts to the body which originally held it. BALTIC SONGSTERS. That little Estonia has a truly musicloving people is proved by the numerous song festivals held every year throughout the country, culminating every five years in a National Festival in the picturesque capital of Tallinn. A Jubilee Festival has lately been held before an audience of 146,000, among the guests being the President of the neighbouring republic Latvia and many visitors from America and Europe. No fewer than 653 choirs, bands, and orchestras took part, totalling 20,000 people, all of whom had been tirelessly practising for three years. The Festival opened with a procession of all the choirs to the accompaniment of 80 bands and orchestras, the procession being several miles long and taking two hours to pass through the streets to the town park.