BESSIE DOYLE CLAIM

Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 March 1935, Page 5

BESSIE DOYLE CLAIM

ALLOWED BY COURT. (Received Saturday, 10.35 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The Northey ease lias been concluded. Mr Justice Innes said a prima facie case had been made out that testator had domicile, either as British by origin or New Zealander, by choice, when he married applicant at Auckland in 1894. As it. had not been made out that the testator had domicile where the North Dakota divorce decree was recognised as valid the applicant was entitled to benefit under the Act.

The Judge expressed the opinion that, applicant had been very badly treated. He adjourned the case to enable counsel to be heard as to the amount and form of order he should 'make.

(A cable on Monday stated: In the Equity Court at Sydney, the hearing has commenced of a claim by a onetime famous violinist who toured Europe, America and Now ..Zealand, Mrs Lydia Elizabeth/ Northey, aged 61, otherwise known as. Bessie Doyle, for a share in the estate of her late husband, Mr Louis Reginald Northey, who died in 1933, leaving £23,000, of which £IOOO was bequeathed to his sister in England and the remainder to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of Great Britain. Mrs Northern, who says that she is now practically destitute, married Mr Northey at the registrar’s office at Auckland in 1894. He deserted her after her concert tour of the Dominion, which he managed, and later invited her to divorce him. She obtained a divorce at North Dakota, United States, and married Robert Mitchell in 1899. Mr Northey met her in Paris some time later, and informed her tha.t her marriage with Mr Mitchell was bigamous. He asked her to leave Mitchell, which she did, since when she has always regarded Northey as her legitimate husband, although of recent years she had maintained herself by concert work and teaching music. The applicant, when famous as a violin player, was first known as Bessie Doyle, and later as Eileen O’Moore).