The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-11-27 00:00:00

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siommiaimenim

sent at the exet of all the codil that en each
;occasion she saw tne will, and read it Je or thrice, and
that on the completion of the eight., .and last codicil,
on the 20th of August, 1813, the testator, locking up
the will with the codicils in his will-box, obs,rved, "There
I love sl one the last earthly thing I wi" The box -(a
small despatch box) was placed in its. usual 'position on the
floor of the room called the "saloon," in which the testator
generally sat and wrote. 011 his illness in the following
September Miss Sugden took charge of the box and retained
it in her custody until her father who had the key was able
to leave his room. It was then brought down and: plaoed
by her in ita old position in the saloon, O'Hare it remained:
from Christinas, 1873, until March 'or April 1874, when her
father being again confined to his' room by illness, Miss.
Sugden again took charge of it and retained its custody
until the testator's death in January, 1875. The box was
opened afterthaftmeralby Mr. Trollope, solicitor, and when'
he announced that the will was not in it, Miss Stigelen re-
marked that she was well aware of its contents and there-
upon -wrote out on the suggestion of Mr. Trollope, and with-
out referring to any document,_ the_provisiens of the instru.-__
rnent as she-recollected them. In *conclusion she stated that
her father was in the constant habit of declaring that it was
the duty of every man so to arrange his affairs that there
should not be a possibility of dispute as to the disposition of
his property after his death, and that in his last illness he
frequently referred to the pleasure which he derived from
having so settled his own affairs.
, ,
On Cross-exainination Dr. Deane called Miss Sngden's
attention to a letter written by her to her brother, the Rev.
Frank Sugden, shortly after the execution of the alleged will,
in which she stated, speaking of her father, "lie has
net kept it (will-box) in its usual place for precaution."
Asked for an explanation of the passage, the answered that
her father was so affected by the hoaxes which were being
played upon him that he feared their perpetrators might
carry their malevolencef to the extent of abstracting his
_papers, and that he, in consequence, removed his will-box
from the place in which he usually kept it. The hoaxes
-ceased in 1870, and the box was again placed in the,saloon
after the execution of the first or second codiciL Her
father, the witness added, generally wrote near
the fire-place in the saloon and she admitted that,
after the 20th of August, 1873, there were occasions, though
few, when he was alone for a short time, and could have had
access to the box if he had thought fit. Pressed to say whether
she in any way connected the disappearance of the will with
the "hoaxes," or had any other theory on the subject, the
witness replied, "Theory is a strong word. I have several
ideas, nothing more, on the subject4,but , have been told to
adhere to facts."' Questioned as to her father's mental con-
dition in the later years of his life, she stated that, in his
last illness, towards the end of 1874, he occasionally
rambled in his mind and had fancies on one occasion
thinking that his deceased brother was in the room, and
on another that he was required to attend the House
of Lords to speak on a particular Bill; but she declared that
those fancies were of short duration, and that practically he
possessed an unclouded intellect up to the hour of his death.
The witness who was under examination for several hours,.
and who gave her evidence with remarkable clearness,
caused some amusement by a statement in reference to an
erasure in one of the codicils, that her father then told her
that in alterations in testamentary papers it was always
better to erase than to obliterate, as people could discover
the words or figures obliterated by the use of magnifying
glasses and telescopes.

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Mr. Trollope, of the firm of Trollope and Winkworth, soli-
citors, deposed that on one occasion- he acted professionally
for the testator, and that on his death he went o B.yle
Farm and opened the will-box in the presence of the mem-.
hers of the family, including the present Lord St. Leonard&
When the will could not be found in the box every possible
search was made for it, but in yam, throughout the house,
and a reward of £5OO was also offered, but without effect,
for any information in respect of it.
The two footmen—James Knox and Charles Roberts—who
atteeied the testator's signature to the will, were called to
prove its execution by him, which, though formally denied on
the pleadings, was not in reality contested; and, fortunately so,
perhaps, for the memory of the witnesses were of the haziest
kind as to the circumstances under which the instrument was
completed. Upon one point, however, the witness Roberts
was clear, and that was that when the pen was handed to
him to sign the will, the testator solemnly addres.ed him
thus :—"According to law no person can touch this property
without your signature to this will." The witness seems to
have been much impressed with the language addressed to
him by his deceased master, and he kept on repeating it
while in the witness-box with amusing solemnity.
Mr. Samuel Warren (Master in Lunacy) was then called,

Mr. Hawkins prefacing his examination with the remark:
'We should apologize, Mr. Warren, for dragging you into
the Probate Court, considering that you have given every
one of us Ten Thousand a Year' for life." (Laughter.)
The witness stated that he had known the late Lord
St. Leonards for the last twenty-five years of his life ;
that he always formed one of the noble and learned lord's
birthday parties at Boyle Farm, and that about three y ears
before his death the deceased said to him, "Warren, you
will be much pleased to hear that I have beught an estate
for Frank for £40,000 ; he is married and has got a
family.. and I think I ought to provide for him." On a sub-
sequent occasion the deceased told him of his intention to
buy a plot of ground and build a residence on it for his
daughter Charlotte, but never referred to his will or codicils.
On cross-examination Mr. Warren said the deceased Lord
was proud of his peerage, and spoke of his leaving sufficient
to keep it up, though for some years he made no allusion to
his grandson, his successor.
Mrs, Tuiner. a daughter of the deceased, also deposed to
having heard her father say that he had given the Kingsdown
estate to her brother Frank; and
The Countess of Harrington likewise gave testimony as ta
declarations by the testator. She stated that her husband
and herself were old friends of the testator, that they fre-
quently visited him at Boyle Farm, and that she heard him
constantly speak of his will, and especially of the provision
which he had made in it for his daughter Charlotte, to whom,
she added, he was tenderly attached, and who gave up her
whole life to him. She had heard him express, she said, dis-
satisfaction with his grandson, but she could not say whether
the fact that the matrimonial engagement contracted by the
grandson in 1872, to which the deceased particularly objected,
was broken off in 1873 or 1874 was made known to the testator.
Other evidence as to declarations by the testator of his in-
tention with regard to his Kingsdown estate was also given,
and the further hearing of the cause was again adjourned.

On Friday the hearing of this remarkable suit was
continued, and the case for the plaintiffs closed. The
additional evidence adduced on their behalf in support
of the will, with eight codicils, of their deceased father,
the late Lord St. Leonards was of a similar character
to that which we have already reported,—namely, de-
clarations by the testator of hie intention to give, or of
his having given, his Kingsdown estate, in Kent, to
his son, the Rev. Frank Sugden, and of his having
suitably provided for his daughter, Miss Charlotte
Sugden to whom, beyond question, he was much
attached. •
The Right non. Spencer Walpole, who was among the wit-
nesses called, stated that he had been a most intimate friend
.of the deceased peer, and for many years was invariably pre-
sent at his birthday celebrations, the last having been the
12th of February, 1874. The testator, he said, was fond of
talking of his investments, and on one occasion, referring to
his property in Kent (the Kingsdown estate) stated that he
intended it for his son Frank, adding that as he had provided
amply for the title he was j'lstilled us shaking provision out
of his savings for his other children. Ile also mentioned that
he had comfortably provided for his daughter Charlotte, but
never spoke to the witness about his grandson's matrimonial
engagements, or expressed dissatisfaction in any way with
him.
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Testimony of a like character was given by Mr, Charles
Walpole; and
The Hon. and Rev. Frank Sugden deposed that his father
had informed him, shortly after the purchase of the pro-
perty in Kent, that "he had told Edward (his grandson,
the present Lord St. Leonards) that the Kingsdown estate
was not for the peerage, and that his prospects would
depend upon his conduct to him" (the grandfather). Mr.
Sugden detailed several conversations which he had with
1 his father at Boyle Farm between 1869 and 1874, and
stated that in May, 1872, the deceased, who had previously
made known to him his intentions with regard to the
Kingsdown property, declared that he would make him the
head of the family, and would give him the peerage if he
could, adding that he regretted having ever taken it. With
regard to the missing will, Mr. Sugden said that he'himself
had never seen it, though aware from what his father told
him that he was one of the executors named in it, and that
on his father's death he found, in an inner drawer of the
escritoire at which the deceased occasionally wrote, a dupli-
cate key of the will-box, and that on further search he dis-
covered that there were five keys in the house with which
the escritoire itself could be opened. He had had many
offers from spiritualists to furnish tidings of the missing will,
but he had not availed himself of their assistance, and the
fate of the document remained still a mystery. ,
Among the other witnesses were several of the servants of
the deceased. One of them, Hobson, the gardener, stated
that in May, 1874, his master' who was then ill in bed, spoke,
as he had frequently done before, alaout the disposition of
his property, as it affected the Rev. Frank Sugden and Miss
Sugden, and concluded this conservation by saying, "Hobson
I have made everything all right, dnd I don't want any
bother with my family when lam dead and gone." Another
domestic, a housemaid, mentioned as one of the peeuliarities
of the testator that he was fond of humming% song which
described "how an old lady had hid her will in the secret
drawer of her cs.binet." The witness could only remember
those words of the ditty, and was unable to say what were
the consequences of the concealment of the paper.

The hearing of this cause was resumed on Saturday,
being the fourth day of the inquiry.
Dr. Dean intimated that the derendants did not intend to
call witnesses. They admitted that a will was duly executed
by the testator: Lord St. Leorrirds, on the 13th of January,
1870, and that the codicils thereto were alto duly executed,
and the c litention in the cause wou'd be limited mainly to
two que‘tions—fi7st, weie the contents of the alleged will as
set out in the plaintiff's declaration? and sv.ondly, was the
will destroyed by the testator with the intention of revoking
it _

Mr. Hawkins thereupon proceeded to sum up the case on
behalf of the plaintiff& With regard to the first question in
the cause, the contents of the alleged will, the proof of those
contents, he admitted, depended mainly on the recollection
of Miss Sugden, whose evidence, however, was fortified by
declarations of the testator made at various t4mes and to
various persons, and by non-testarnentafy documents in
his handwriting. Still, the proof of tne contents of the
will depended mainly on the recollection of Miss Sugden,
and it became, therefore, essential to consider her posi-
sition with regard to the testator, and her means and op-
portunities of becoming acquainted with the character of
the mUsing paper. She had deposed, and her integrity
was not disputed, that for the last twenty years, upon -every
act of his life pretty nearly, she hal been consulted by
her father. Commencing the history of his testamentary
papers with the will of 1867, which was made after the
death of his eldest son, Mr. Henry Sugden, she stated that
after its execution her father read it over to her, and that
she herself also subsequently read it. It might be said what
an extraordinary thing it was that the contents of a docu-
ment couched in abstruse legal phraseology and teeming
with legal technicalities should be remembered by Miss
Sugden, but in considering whether the circumstance was
extraordinary or not, it should be borne in mind the
life which Miss Sugden had led. She had been the lull-
mite end constant companion of her (father for a number
at years ; there was not a book that he wrote on the sub-
ject of real property or disposition of estates with which
she was not perfectly familiar ; and she had even assisted
him in correcting the proofs of some of his works. It was
not, therefore, surprising that she should have easily
mastered and borne in mind the chief disposition: of the
will. , It would have been a matter of surprise had it been
otherwise; and had she come into the witness-box and said
that she could only recollect that certain estates were given
to certain members of the family, but to what extent or
with whet limitations she 'could not say because
of the technical character -of the Instrument. The '
circumstance would have certainly called for comment.
But proof of the contents of, the will did not rest wholly,
upon her recollection, the accuracy and completeness of
which were shown by the manner in which, without refe-
rence to memoranda of any kind, the existing codicils,
or other aid to memory, she wrote down the substantial
provisions of the missing paper the moment it was ascertained
that the document had disappeared. Her truth was not
questioned. The matter was one of memory, and her recol-
lection was fortified not only by the declarations of the tes-
tator in reference to herself, her brother, Mr. FranjE Sugden
and his intentions in respect to • the di,position of the
Kingsdown estate, but also by two memoranda which were
made "exhibits "In the case. (The first of these memoranda
is in the handwriting of the deceased lord; the other was
jotted down at his requst by Miss Sugden subsequent to the
execution of the will The first is appatently an abstract of
the testamentary _dispositions either' already made or in-
tended to be made by the testator, and the second noted the
alleged substantial devises and bequests contained in the
will.) Having minutely analyzed those papers, the codicils,
and the evidence, touching the declarations. of, ,the testator,
and pointed out the manner and extent tcs ,w,blehisthey
corroborated Miss Sngden's recollection of the—tolsslng
will, Mr. Hawkins proceeded' to consider the second ques-
tion in the case—whether the will had been destroyed by
the testator with the intention of revoking It? There
could be no doubt, he said, that on the 23rd of August,
1873, the date of the last codicil, the will was safely de-
posited by the testator in his will-box. The box was
left on the table while he and Miss Sugden went out
for a drive, and on their return Miss Sugden re-
moved it from the table and placed it on the floor
In a particular part of the room where it was usually