PEERESS’S £85,000.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16894, 16 November 1920, Page 3

PEERESS’S £85,000.

DISASTROUS RABBIT SPECULAi TION.

The business ventures and deals with moneylenders of Maria Gertrude, Baroness Decies, Lower Belgravo Street, W., were described at a meetjpg of creditors in London recently. No statement of her affairs had been lodged, but it was reported that she had estimated her liabilities at £27,000, In a preliminary examination, said the Official Receiver, Lady Decies said that, on the death of her'husband in 1910, ehe inherited £85,000. Sho purchased Scotswood, Sunningdale, for £85(10 and spent £16,000 on the estate. Oh the outbreak of war she offered her services as a nurse, and went to Prance, returning wounded in May, 1915. Later she served in a military hospital in England until May, 1917, when she went as a nurse to Russia and Roumania. In July, 1918, she and her sister, took an empty shop at 37 Lower Belgrave Street, and started a rabbit-breeding business, the idea being “to provide food and fur and to capture the Gorman trade.” This business was carried on "Under the style of “The Hutch,” but it was unsuccessful, and was closed at the end of a year. She then converted Scotswood into a hotel under the name of the Scotswood Golf Hotel. Lady Decies claimed, said tho. Official ''that this venture would have been successful, but in July last the mortgagees appointed a receiver, who took possession and sold tlio property, ■- She padded that her failure was due to the fact that for many years sho had advanced largo sums of money to her Into brother, Sir John Willoughby. In this way sho exhausted' her own ready money and went to moneylenders. Since then her securities had been realised little by little, until there was now nothing left. The Official Receiver said Sir John Willoughby’s estate was being wound up in Chancery, and Lady Decies had put in a claim for £40,000. Sho understood that it had been admitted for 4125,000. Her other assets comprised certain annuities and a number of shares. Mr. Coote, her solicitor, snid Sir John Willoughby died hopelessly insolvent, and the debtor’s claim against bis estate “might realise something like 41d in the £.”