A CHEQUERED CAREER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12856, 30 April 1912, Page 8

A CHEQUERED CAREER.

E. T. HOOLEY'S SCHEMES END IN GAOL.

" A fine finish " murmured Ernest Tenth' Hooley., as he left the Old Bailey dock, sentenced for fraud to 12 months' imprisonment. As a second-division prisoner (the judge granted this alleviation, in view of his past business, education, and wife and family) he will not mix with hard-labour prisoners; he will wear clothes of another colour, have a mattress, and he may write a letter, and receive a visitor once a month. Otherwise he will fare as the rest. Hop-ley's, career presents .astonishing vicissitudes. Born in 1859. eon of a Nottingham lace operative who became a prosperous manufacturer., he used to walk daily eight miles to and from school,; which he left at 13. He worked as a".twist.-hand/ and played the harmonium at a* Baptist chapel. He got into touch with an ex-railway servant, fertile in financial schemes, and started his real career by turning his father's business into a company, and floated it for £100,000. From Nottingham, where lie practised as--a stockbroker, he came to London, and became the great Hooloy of the nineties. His method was to buy a business, and re-sell it to the public at a handsome profit. Altogether he floated 26 companies, including Dunldp, Hnmber, Bovril, Schweppes, and Trafford-park Estates, with a nominal capital of nearly £l9;000,000, and gross profits to himself of. £5,000,----000, though £4,000,000 seems to have gone in -" promotion expenses." . He refused to go into the city, but made financiers; gilt-edged directors, and everybody ~come -to.. his suite of eight rooms at'the Midland Grand, Hotel, St. . Pancras, for which his rental was £200 a week. The sumptuous breakfasts and luncheons he provided, etc., cost, him £250 a week; but he lived abstemiously himself, saying that he could not work, drink, and smoke at the same time. At the week-end he visited his princely country seats. Farming was his delight, and ho boasted of being the largest sheepbreeder in England. He gave a 300oz. service of gold Communion plate to St. Paul's Cathedral—afterwards paid for, and set 'aside £400,000 for widows and orphans in his Derbyshire district. He- also offered. £10,000 to the Nottingham Hospital if tho workmen would subscribe 200,000 shillings; planned to buy the National Liberal Club for the Conservatives; and proposed to pay the election expenses of a Derbyshire 'member, and give £10,000 to a charity, if that member would resign and fight vhim for the seat. In 1898 it all collapsed (4s 4s in the £l to unsecured creditors), and Hooley was allowed £20 <a week. Most of the time jsince then, however, he has occupied Risley Hall, in Derbyshire, and Papworth Hall in Cambridgeshire, without parting with a servant or a stick of furniture. As he explained, friends presented 'Mi's Hooley with estates worth £130.000. and in 1903 she reoived £93.500 as holder of a policy on the hfe of Adolphus Drucker. Hooley's former n.ssociate. who died bankrupt in Xew V-m-k. Nevertheless, he wat» ....«»• moned for £20 odd for rates last Octoorder was made against him; For.tho last four -years, he said at'the Qld Bailey, he has lived by contracting to buy large estates, and selling them in small lots, and has thus dealt in landed proneriy to the vnlue of nearly £3.000.000. I* wns through such transactions with n young man named Tweedale tbnt WoXlev reached tbedock. £2.1.500 of his p.s the judge said,' has passed into the hands of Hooley or hi<^ associates, .and Tweedalo now finds himsolf with"£l6,ooo obligations that ro -innot meet, :ft.|id'.a- receiving, order ae;ainst I'ini. 'Thoiudee declined to say that all (":ihi« wa.fr!•crlmhutl^ *>r that Hoolev was !-r->lelv to rhlame.1 He is sentenced only f.-'h pbtn'min'of £2.000 by false pretences. , tt« »^H R'«le v Hat! hn Tweedale for £16.000 in six -months' bills. Tweedale en\d :th<* cattle, h a.vstacks, croos, furniture, etc for £-14.000. Hut tf»at went t't pnv off TTvortgapros on the estate, and

"Son Tw">r]nlr> eonld not meet his bills. R-o-olov nff<^-'H him his Thorney Hall F.s+ato in Northamoto-rishire afl a ba.rH^o'ev «.i(rned' a statutory deoinrnf.'rin tl's^t. th's pstn+« wns unencum--I.r»rod t?j« '+«*ut)i beinp tbat it was h«**>*> •!v cVfi>'"?d..-''T-"*«ef|.fllo paid £2.000 riotv-n In vniii-H<v»l«iv strove to show t\*\b h<? w;?s tranneel by Tweorli]e'« solicitor :. went in fcTip. box'ovor the "Rislef «i)r>. .onf] oflfpi*ed in /v>urt to nay Twctlr,l(\ l^nlc h's £2.000 "n diVimionrocl '••''ls of Twe<vl ale's +o that amonnt. For tiifp.attp.*rt.T>t to sp++le p <»i;?nvTi-«l. oharo** Uv.hftr^nn +b<» ii.idffe r*»b'iW«*»4 him, and }Vir» cT'fninil cbnxErp ar^ceetied. .