The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-10-02 00:00:00

A STOURBRIDGE MAN'S GOOD FORTUNE.

The accidents and chances of life are often pas—
sing strange, and a marvellous piece of good fortune
which has just befallen a Stourbridge man illustrates
the curious changes in w nidly circumstanc?s which
the ups and downs of existence sometines Lring
about. Last week—it was a week ago yesterdw—
two gentlemen were enquiring in Market Street,
St )ucbridge, for the house of a person named
Wilkinson, When they reached the right house
and knocked, Richard Lightowler Wilkinson went
t) the doer. They asked if Mr. Wilkinson lived
there, and were told that Mrs. Wilkinson; who is a
widow, did; and further enquiry was made if
Richard Wilkinson was there. The young man
told them be was Richard Wilkinson, and they then
wished to know if he bore any other name besides
Richard. On this point, also, their inquisitiveness
was satisfied, and Wilkinson was puzzled by the
examination which followed on other matters, and
he b came half alarmed as to what he might have
uewittingly done to cause such a desire to ferret
out all about him. He gas, indeed, twitted
afterwards for being too communicative to strangers,
for the gentlemen who were interviewing him were
quite unknown to him, though in the conversation
their names ware mentioned. In the course of the
questioning to which he was subjected, he was
asked if he had ever been away from Stourbridge,
and it happens that as a carpenter and joiner
Wilkinson has worked in various parts of the
country, and so he told them. This led on to
enquiry if he had ever been in the North of England
and in Newcastle-we-Tyne, and his interrogators
seemed satisfied when they had brought out the
fact that he had once been there, and that he had
rescued a gentleman there from drowning. They
intimated that he would have a communication in
a day or two withiregard to the enquiries they had
been making from him, and on Friday this reached
him in a solicitor's letter, notifying that mining
property of the value of £25,000 and money to the
amount of £1,450 had been bequeathed to him
under the will of the gentleman above referred to,
for the gallant service he had rendered in savine, his
life. Wilkinson had let the memory of the affair
slip from him till the unlooked-for sequel which
has come about, but when the facts were revived in
his mind he remembered the gentleman saying to
him that he should never forget his services to him,
little thinking there would be such an outcome of
the words which were uttered in the excitement of
the moment. Our Stourbridge reporter had an
interview yesterday with Mr. Wilkinson, who
readily favoured him with some particulars regarding
the incident which have led to his turn of good
fortune. In the spring of 1882 he was at wo kin
the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and on
the evening of the sth April, after finishing work,
he went for a stroll along the Tyne side. lie was
walking by the side of the river between Wallsend
and Newcastle, and saw a gentleman approachine-
in the opposite direction, whom at first sight he
thought under the influence of liquor. Mr. Wilkinson
who is an abstainer
_himself, was at the moment
inclined to turn away from the river rather pass
him, but, fortunately for himself and the gentleman
as well, he did not do so. As it afterwards turned
out the gentleman in question had been seized with
giddiness from a fit coming on, and before Wilkinson
came up he had fallen into the river. The latter
lost no time in basting to his rescue, and though
he could not swim he jumped in after the stranger.
The water was not deep at the spot, or it would
have gone badly with both of them, for, as it was,
the rescuer had a struggle to get his man out. He
could not speak for about ten minutes, and when
he came round he said that he should have been
dead if Wilkinson Lad not happened to see him and
save him. The gentleman, who we may say was a
Mr. W. C. Willis, of good position .in the neigh-
bourhood, was very exhausted, and Wilkinson
assisted him home. Both were drenched, and Mr.

Willis offered his helper a change of olcthes,
which he said he did not want, as he would make
his Way to his lodgings. Mr. Willis gave him ss,
and said : "You have saved my life to-night, and I
shall never forget you as long as I live." He told
him he was a man of means, and should remember
him; and he took his name down, writing it with
some particularity. Wilkinson went away to his
lodgings, and had a Severe cold for some time
afterwards from the effects of his immersion. He
told the landlord of what had passed, and that the
gentleman had taken his name down. His landlord
ridiculed the idea that this meant anything in the
way of a present beyond what had been given him,
and said that he would stake £lOO to a id that he
never got anything beyond the ss. As a matter of
fact, Wilkinson heard no more of Mr. Willis at the
time; and in the course of a few weeks left New-
castle fei good, and forgot all about his adventure
of the sth April, 1882, till it has now be, n recalled
to mind in such an uLterly unexpected manner. He
says he happened to see two phrenologists hi the
interval, and they both told him he was born to be

lucky, and they gave him some prognostications of
his future, which seem, at all events, very remark
in 'dew of fbn 01-iw.ogo In bi irournotanceo ,hich
has now been notified to him. It si_happens that

fortune ha 9 not favoured him for the lasi Couple of
years, and a business experiment he made in
Birmingham with some money he had saved turned
out badly, and he lost all he had got together. As
regards employment, too, things had been going
against him from trade generally being in the
unsatisfactory state in which everyone knows it to
have been. Singularly welcome, therefore, was the
notification of the tight-ahout turn in his circum-
stances which the wheel of fortune has brought
about. It seems that a search has' been going on
for Wilkinson for some time past; but, though
several Richard Wilkinsons had been found, none
proved the right one. Wilkinson was told a few
weeks ago that a Richard Wilkinson had been
advertised for, and at the time had not the least
idea it could be him, and he took no notice of the
circumstance. Mr. Willis's death occured several
months ago, mill it is stated that he was a widower
without any family. His fortunate legatee has
reason to believe that he will very shortly be put
into possession of the estate which f.asses to him
under Mr. Willis's will.
Birmingham Daily Post, Wednesday.