VICAR DUPED BY WIFFE

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2191, 2 August 1928, Page 2

VICAR DUPED BY WIFFE

AN AMAZING CAREER. An extraordinary story of extravagant living and deception on the part of the wife of an English Clergyman was told recently at the Cheltenham County Court. The Rev. G. F. Irwin, vicar of St. Paul's, Cheltenham, was sued by Dorothy May Elliston, proprietress of an art needlework business at Ipswich, for about £6O worth of nightdresses, lingerie, dressing gowns, and other garments supplied to his wife. According to Miss Elliston's counsel Mr Irwin was curate at St. Margaret's Church, Ipswich, where Miss Elliston was a church worker. The stipend of the church was £4OO, with £IOO as an Easter offering, but the Irwins lived in lavish style, engaging a suite of rooms at one of the most expensive hotels in Ipsjwich, staying at such places as the Hotel Metropole, London, and travelling fairly extensively in England and Europe. A house at £2OO a year rent was offered them, but Mrs Irwin declared that it was, too small and not enough for their style. Counsel added that the previous week Mrs Irwin was convicted of fraud, having ruined another man. Counsel for the vicar said that Mr Irwin first met his wife eight years ago at Wallingford. "She was the daughter of a Shieffield doctor, and seemingly came from an environment of unimpeachable respectability. Mr Irwin at that time had a total income of about £9OO, but five years ago his wife persuaded him to accept the living at Ipswich, which meant a financial loss to "him of £250. She represented that she had a private income of £4OO a year and an allowance of £2OO from her father, added to which a Mr Charles Johnson had died and left her securities bringing in £BOO a years. Before Mrs Irwin could receive the securities, however, she had, she said to pay certain probate duties and Mr Irwin lent her securities to guarantee an overdraft at the bank. She got further money from him by offering to make a settlement upon him, but when she secured his signature to some ducument it was not to transfer her securities to him but his securities to her. Mrs Irwin also said that she was receiving £SOO a year salary as secretary to a Mr Ward, in whose service she continued after marriage because of 'her intimate knowledge of his affairs, thus accounting for her frequent visits to London. In various ways, added counsel, she filched money from Mr Irwin until his bank acquainted him of a big overdraft. From 1920 to 1923 she obtained £5600 from her husband.

Inquiries showed that people supposed to have left money to his wife had never existed, it was added that she was an adventuress before she married Mr Irwin and that her life was nothing but a lie. He had already paid £I4OO for things his wife had bcugtht without payment, and had unwittingly signed guarantees to moneylenders.

The parties came to a settlement outside the court on terms not divulged.