The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-12-08 00:00:00

THE EXTRAORDINARY WILL CASE.

On Tuesday, in the Queen's Bench Division of the
High Court of Justice, in the case of "Priestman v.
Thomas and others," which has been before Mr.
Justice Manisty fourteen days, the jury, after a de-
liberation of seventy minutes, found that the coin'
promise of the 7th of June, 1881, was obtained by the
fraud of Thomas; that the will of the 21st March, 1881,
was a forgery; and that Thomas was party or privy
to the forgery. The judge said the finding was en-
tirely in accordance with his own feeling. The docu-
ments produced in Court during the hearing have
been impounded.—We take the following summary of
the case from the Daily News of Wednesday :
The action was a very peculiar one, both in its
general nature and in its particular circumstances. I
was brought to set aside a compromise on the ground
of fraud, but the real issue to be determined was
whether a will made in favour of Thomas had or had
not been forged. The jury have found that it was
forged, and that the compromise was obtained by
fraud. The plaintiff is a natural son of the
testator, who lodged with Thomas, a stranger
to him in blood. The late Mr. James Whalley, whose
property is the subject of this dispute, was a retired
ironmaster, who lived at Leominster, in Herefordshire.
He was a person of penurious habits, and few of his
neighbours seem to have suspected that he had much
money. He was in fact worth sixty thousand pounds.
For some time previous to his death he lived with
Charles Thomas, a railway porter, for whom he
appears to have conceived an affection. On the 7th of
May, 1881, James Whalley died, and after his death
Charles Thomas and Mr. Edward Gunnell, a
wine merchant, of Leominster, produced a will,
in which they and Priestman were appointed
executors, and by which the whole estate was he.
queathed to Thomas, with the exception of five thou.
sand pounds to Priestman, and a hnndred pounds to
Mr. Gunnell for his trouble. Mr. Whalley, it should
be said, had no legitimate children, and *bough he had
several others he showed no interest in them except in
Priestman and Priestman'e sister Emma, a girl with
whom he had had a very painful and distressing
quarrel. In short, he was not on terms with
any of his relations but Priestman. In him
Mr. Whalley had always shown the strongest
interest, and had attempted to provide for
him permanently in many ways. Probate of the
will was granted on the 31st of May, 1881, to
Thomas and Gunnell, but Priestman endeavoured to
get it set aside, and the suit came on in due form to be
tried before Sir James[Hannen. At the trial, however, a
compromise was arranged, and Thomas agrecd to take
the sum of seventeen thousand pounds in satisfaction
of all his claims. There in all human probability
the matter would have rested but for an incident
which would be condemned as extravagant in a work
of fiction. Priestman:had always alleged that a will
had been made in his favour by Whalley in the month
of April, 1881, on blue paper. After the cornprclaise
had been signed, Priestman drove into Leominster
with his cousins. As they passed Thomas's house
Thomas waved at them a sheet of blue paper in a
defiant manner, and Priestman was immediately
struck with the notion that that must be the genuine
will.

This, however, was mere surmise, though it put
Priestman, according to his own account, on the alert.
But soon a deponent appeared whose tale was a good
deal more important than the supposed identity of a
niece of blue paper with a missing will. This was
Edward Rees. Rees came to Priestman, and told
him a very strange story. He said that on the
21st March Whalley was very N, and wished to
write a letter to Priestman. He asked Thomas
to write it for him, and Thomas wrote it in
pencil. Whalley signed it in ink. Then one Nash
acting at the instigation of Thomas, erased the pencil
tearks with indisb rubber, and wrote over Whalley's
signature the will of which probate was granted.
Rees added that he and Nash signed their names
to the forged will as witnesses, a tact which
Nash is alleged to have subsequently admitted.
The testimony of an accomplice in civil as well
as criminal trials is always received with grave
suspicion. But in this case Rees was strongly
corroborated. There undoubtedly was an alter.
cation between Whalley and Priestman about a letter
which Whalley declared he had sent, and Priestman
said he never received. Several witnesses have testi.
fled to the truth of the statements that pencil marks
are still visible on the will of the 21st of March, and
that the texture of the paper shows traces of having
been subbed. The hesitator, as Mr. Justice Manisty
pointed out in summing up, continued to the last to
manifest the most affectionate regard for the plaintiff and
his affairs. On the 12th of April he wrote to his
stockbrokers representing that certain shares should
not be left in the hands of a young man like Priest-
man, though, if the will of the 21st of March was
genuine, Priestman would have had nothing whatever
to do with them. All these circumstances supported
the conclusion that the will was not genuine, and it is
imposhible to doubt the propriety cf the verdict.