£1,250,000 ESTATE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 492, 29 June 1932, Page 1

£1,250,000 ESTATE.

AVife Was Left Out of Will by Husband. OTHER WOMEN MENTIONED. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received June 29, 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, June 28. In the Probate Court, the Lord Justice of Appeal, Lord Merri\’ale, began the hearing of a dispute concerning the £1,250,000 estate of the late Montague Stanley Napier, an engine manufacturer. Henry Cooke, Napier’s executor, seeks to propound a Avill Avhich is supported by Napier’s brother Walter. Under this will Mrs Nora Fryer, widow of testator’s doctor, is the chief beneficiary. . Mrs Napier is contesting this and relies on earlier Avills, under Avhich there was an annuity for Walter and for each child. Reference was made to an affair between Napier and Mrs Cadman, his typist, by Avhom he had a daughter. Cooke, for Napier, disclosed that trusts amounting to thousands of pounds, Avere prepared for them, but were never executed. He added that he Avas not aAvare that Napier’s father had forced his Avife into a heated room before she Avas accouched, because he said that it Avould benefit the baby’s complexion. Mrs Napier always found fault Avith her husband, who replied sarcastically but was too courteous to shoAv that he loathed her. Cooke said that he was unaware that Napier Avas simultaneously engaged to two women in 1897. Mr Moss Turner-Samuels, for Mrs Napier, said that Avhen Napier published his marriage announcement he reA’ersed his Avife’s name and gave the Avrong register office, Avhich showed mental irregularity He would also call evidence to shoAv that Napier offered his Avife a life annuity of £3OOO, but she insisted on £SOOO.