BELATED CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1938, Page 11

BELATED CLAIM

THOMAS WALKER ESTATE

SON'S ALLEGED MARRIAGE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, September 29.

Claiming that her three sons were grandchildren of the late Thomas Walker, of Yaralla, Concord, Mrs. Elizabeth Bartley, of Sydney, claimed that they were solely entitled to the £425,000 Walker estate. Until her solicitor asked for leave to enter a claim there had been no mention of Mrs. Bartley and her children in the inquiry conducted by the Master in Equity. The solicitor said that he would seek to show that Mrs. Bartley had been married to Henry Walker, who, it was claimed; was a son of Thomas Walker by his first marriage. If that could be proved it would mean that Mrs. Bartley's three children wouid be direct descendants of Thomas Walker and would take precedence over hundreds of other people claiming a lesser degree of kinship.

Replying to the Master in Equity (Mr. W. A. Parker) the solicitor said that Mrs. Bartley would be entitled to a share .of the estate through one of her deceased sons. Henry Walker died in 1918 and subsequently Mrs. Bartley remarried.

Remarking it was queer that the claim had not been lodged within the time required by the advertisement dealing with the distribution of the estate, the Master gave leave to prose* cute the claim, provided an affidavit was filed setting out the full particulars of the claim.

Thomas Walker died in 1886, leaving £850,000. Under his will he directed that if his daughter, the late Dame Eadith Walker, died unmarried, half of his estate, of which she had been a life tenant, should go to charity and half to the next-of-kin by blood. Hundreds of claims to share in the distribution were received. Among the claimants are many living in Australia, and others living in Scotland, England, South Africa, Canada, and in foreign countries. The* present inquiry into the merits of these claims has occupied thirty days.