The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-03-18 00:00:00

- ,

THE

LORD ST. LEONARDS' WILL.

On Monday, in the Supreme Court of Judicature,
before the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls,
, Lords Justices James, Mellish, and Baggallay, judg-
ment was given in the case of "Sugden v. Lord St.
Leonards," and which was argued before the Court of
Appeal in the course of last week.
The facts have been already fully stated, and it will
i-be-suffieientrae--a-bare outline for the purpose of ren-
dering the judgment intelligible (remarks The Times),
to state that on the 13th of January, 1870, the late
• Lord St. Leonards executed a will, in addition to a
'Previous will made by -him in 1867, and between
January, 1870, and the 20th of August, 1873, he
also executed at various periods eight codicils.
'These instruments, which were all holograph, were
deposited in a - despatch-box; the key of which
was in. his 'possession, and which was ordinarily
kept in a sitting-room on the ground floor, except for
a period of time when he was ccinfined to his room
from illness, when it remained in the keeping of his
daughter,
,the it, who lived with
attoyle Farm; Surrey. At the death of. Lord St.
eonards; Januark, 1876, the will of January, 1870,
was not to be found, although the eight codicils were
still in the'box. . At the suggestion of the family soli-
citor, the lion CharlotteSugden, who had often read ove r
the will and was perfectly acquainted with her fathetts
testamentary,intentions, sat down and at once wrote (At
from memory;,lwithout referring to the codicils, tile
contente.of the missing will. The statement was sn
all material particulars confirmed by the codicils and
by declarations of the testator and certain testament-
ary memoranda in his own handwriting.
The President of the Probate,,Divinickt (Sir J.
Hamm) found that the will and. Codicils were duly
"exeoutedi, that the.will was not destroyed by the tee•
tator ammo revocatudi, end that the contents of tlie
will, with one slight exception were to the effect
set forth in .Miss Sugclen's declaration. Probate
having been accordingly granted to the paper written
out by Miss' Sugden as the last will and testament of
'the -deceased, the present Lord St. Leonardo and
other members of the family now appealed.
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in giving judgment,
said that several questions arose out of the facts stated
in evidence. In the first place, was the will destroyed
by the testator animo revocandil If not, could
secondary evidence be given of its contents? If so, was
there satisfactoi y evidence of the contents? And, lastly,
although the evidence did not extend to all the con-
tents, yet, being satisfactory with regard to a portion
of the contents, ought probate to be granted to that
portion as set out in the declaration of Mies
Sugden? It is a well-known presumption of law
that when a will was missing it must be taken
to have been destroyed by the testator for
for the purpose of revoking it. But of course that pre-
sumption might be rebutted by facts. Down to the
time of his death Lord St. Leonardo was in the con-
stant habit of talking to any one with whom he came
in contact about his testamentary dispositions, and of
expressing his satisfaction that he had provided for his
family. It seemed utterly impossible that under these
circumstances Lord St. Leonards could have voluntarily
destroyed this will, either for the purpose of revoking it
or for any other purpose that could be conceived. The
only conclusion at which he (the Lord Chief Justice)could
arrive was that the will had been surreptitiously taken
away by somebody. The next question was whether
sufficient evidence had been given of the contents of
the will. Lord St. Leonards read over the will to Miss
Sugden, and on various occasions she had opportunities
of reading it. Tnere could be no doubt as to the honesty
of purpose of Miss Sugden; and what she had said about
the disposition of the real estate was confirmed by codicils
to the will. The court then had satisfactory evidence
as to the substantial parts of the will, and the intentions
of the testator ought not to be frustrated by withholding
probate from the declaration of Miss Sugden. Great
mischief would be done if it was a rule of the court
that secondary evidence could not be given of the
contents of a missing will, because if that was the rule,
persons who wished to defeat a testator's intentions
could do so by destroying his will. He (the Lord
Chief Justice) thought the appellants ought to have
been satisfied with the judgment of Sir J. Hannen,
and their appeal must be dismissed with costs. The
other members of the court concurred.
The court, from the moment the doors were opened,
was filled to overflowing, and several ladies occupied
seats on the bench during the delivery of the judg-
ments, which occupied something over two hours.
the

The Times of Tuesday has the following leader on
case :

Judgment has been given by the Court of Appeal in the
case of the will of Lord St. Leonards, and the appeal of the
heir-at-law has been unanimously dismissed, with costs. It
Is a gratifying proof of the accelerated march of justice
since the Judicature Acts came into operation that an appeal
has already been determined from a Judgment which was
only given on the 25th of November last. The case has been
so much before the public that its general character is suffi-
ciently known. The aged ex-Chancellor made a will on the
13th of January, 1870, which changed a former disposition
of the estate, and conferred considerable advantages on
the second son of the testator and on his unmarried daughter,
the Hon. Charlotte Sugden. This lady had been the constant
companion and confidant of her father. "She was," as Sir
James Hannen observed in his Judgment, "his assistant and
amanuensis in the preparation of the late editions of his
works, and she appeared also to have been always with him
upon the occasions on which he dealt with his testamentary
papers and dispositions." She had a special training in the
comprehension of legal documents, and she had ample oppor-
tunities of becoming acquainted with the contents of this
particular instrument So it came to pass that when Lord
St. Leonards died, and his will was not to be found, the Hon,
Charlotte Sugden was able to make before the Presi-
dent of the Probate Court a remarkably intelligent and lucid
statement of his intentions. Her knowledge of legal terms
and doctrines disposed of any doubts as to her capacity for
understanding and remembering what she had read; and,
besides, there was in evidence a paper which she had drawn
up at the suggestion of the solicitor as soon as it was found
that the will was missing. She had immediately written
down from memory, and without consultation with any one,
the contents of the missing document. This paper had
been admitted in evidence ; it was in substantial agree-
ment with the more detailed and technical statement
embodied in the declaration and with the testimony
given in Court. Miss Sugden's account of the con-
tents of the will was also confirmed, as far as possible, by
the codicils which remained in the box. She was substan-
tlally the only witness, and she had a direct interest in estab-
lishing the missing will; but her testimony, in the opinion
of the Judge of the Probate Court, bore the stamp of truth,
and he decided that the will was such as she described it.
This being the case, the question remained whether the tes-
tator had himself destroyed it. Sir James Hannen reviewed
at length the reasons for and against this hypothesis to be
gathered from the will itself or from external circumstances,
and he came to the conclusion that the will was not re-
voked by the testator, and that when the testator died he
believed that it was still in existence. The legal presump-
tion was held to have been rebuttad by the testimony given.
Sir James Hannen, before whom the cause was tried without
a jury, found that the will of 1870 was duly executed and
attested, as also the various codicils: that the will was net
revoked by the testator, and that the contents of the will
were, with the exception mentioned by the Court, set out in
the declaration. Probate was accordingly granted to the
paper written out by Miss Sugden. From this judgment
the present Lord St. Leonards and other members of the
family appealed.

_ -
The case may be interesting to the general public from
the strangeness of circumstances, which resemble the
incidents of a modern novel, bat its importance will lie in the
latitude which the Judges give to the reception of testimony,
and the authority they allow it in rebutting a presumption
of law. During the argument the Court emphatically ex-
pressed its opinion that on the evidence it was impossible
to believe that Lord St. Leonards had destroyed his own
will aninto revocandi. The evidence taken in the Court
below had been read over, and it convinsted the Judges, as it
had convinced Sir James Hannen, that the old Peer died in
the belief that the will was where he had placed it. The
Solicitor-General was arguing for the appellant on this
point when the Court plainly told him they thought the view
he urged was inadmissible. "To suppose that the deceased
himself destroyed the will," said the Lord Chief Justice, "is
In contradiction with his whole previous life and declara-
tions. Looking at the man and what he was, we cannot come
to such a conclusion." The Solicitor-General found the
Court so completely against him that he sat down. Equally
decided were the Judges that the account given by Miss
Sugden of the contents of the missing will was substantially
accurate. They looked, like the Judge of the Court below,
to the peculiar position and training of the witness, and to
the opportunities she possessed of becoming acquainted- with
her father's several wills and codicils Having come to a
conclusion favourable to the respondents on these 181-
portant points, the Court of Appeal had no difficulty in dis-
posing of the case It was intimated yesterday morning that
their Lordships did not think it necessary to call upon the
Counsel for the respondents for any further argument, as
they had made up their minds on the case. The Lord Chief
Justice then proceeded to deliver his judgment. He referred
to the circumstances under which the will was made and
kept and spoken of by the testator as in existence; and he
declared, as on the former occasion, that, as it was im-
possible Lord Si. Leonards could have destroyed his will,
there could be no other conclusion but that it must have
been clandestinely got at by some 080 and surrepti-
tiously taken away. Then comes the question whether,
the will having been lost, parol evidence could he
given of its contents. " Parol evidence of the contents of a
lost instrument," said Lord Campbell. "may be received as
much in the case of a will as of any other instrument, and the
contrary doctrine would be most dangerous, as, if parol evi-
dence could not be admitted of a lost will, any one who could
obtain possession of a dead man's will would thus be able to
defeat his intentions." On the subject of the admissibility
and value of the declarations of the testator himself as to the
provisions of his will important questions arose, on which
the Lord Chief Justice .prOnounced an elaborate Judgiaont.
The Master of the Hulls delivered a Judgment substantially
In accord with the preceding, both Judges holding that it
would be unjust and mischievous if the contents of such an
instrument as a Will could not be established by oral testi-
mony, or it arbitrary presumptions were to defeat intentions
for which there appeared clear and substantially unim-
peached evidence.

This decision will, we doubt not, give general satisfaction,
as doing real justice in the case. There can be no reasonable
is
seuffixisettenenctel, y
acnondfih his
confirmed doubt that Lord St. Leonards on his death-bed did think that
eddaugbyhhts'stattoesmtimenotndyuarsingto
its his
cwo ni 1 t el wn
astsn
life, and by nndestroyed papers. Therefore the te,stator's in-
tentions will be carried out, and that is the object which
every Court should desire to effect. Yet it is in the natttre
of these investigations, where human jud t m
decide on the balance of probabilities, that gmen
the dita" oetrink 1
which seems to be established by any deci ' &on may
have in it the elements of inconvenience and of
injustice. Every one will feel that the case of
" Sugden V. Lord St. Leonards " does carry the recept'oti
of secondary and oral evidence beyond what has hitlie '
141.
s
been thought admissible, It would have been a b
ard t c
a ,
if the decision had been otherwise, and yet it is posaible :
that it may unsettle people's minds about what was ler-
merly thought a fixed and indubitable principle, and 'thus
give rise to litigation rather than suppress it. Evidence
has always been given with respect to missing wills, and
' draeghts have been admitted to probate, but the circum-
stances have hardly.had the present character. Practically,
the general and wholesome belief has been that when a man
makes a will he should take care to put it in a place of
safety, or in proper custody; for if he keeps it by hint, and it
, should not be forthcoming, he will be taken to have died
I intestate. But the aged Lord St. Leonards, after making, it
is said, a new disposition of his property at the age of g 9,
a puts the will in a small box, kept unsecured in a room on the
a ground floor. Several ordinary keys in the house would; flt
the lock ; everybody knew the will was there; it was often,.
. taken out by the testator and passages read aloud to variOns
persons; codicils were added and placed with the original 'in-
strument ; the dispositions of the property formed a comnlott9
topicof the old man's conversation. It is impossible to imagine
L more extreme, and we miKlit say culpable, carelessness-than
) wi4s displayed by the testator, and still more by those about
) 'him with respect to these testamentary papers. The relit-
-6 tives knew the largeness of the interests with which the win .
- I dealt, and•they were equally aware that the later ditipeoi
tious of the property would not „
be acceptable to -some,
' members of the family. Yet the will was kept in the menho
. , described. The example of the plaintiffs' success in the
, present cause is not favourable to pslef4i and business.'
habits.
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