THE BUCKLEY CLAIMANT.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 65, 15 August 1874, Page 3

THE BUCKLEY CLAIMANT.

Thomas Maher, the claimant to the Buckley estates (says the Australasian) died in the Melbourne gaol. It will be remembered that Mr r. C. Buckley died two years ago, leaving property to the value of some £60,000 or £70,000. So far as could be ascertained he died intestate, and without any next of kin. Administration to his estate was granted to two creditors. A few months afterwards Maher, who was an old friend of Buckley's, produced a will said to have been made in his favor some thirty years before Maher alleged that when Buckley came to Gipps Land from the Manaroo district, he was apprehensive that his life would be in danger from the blacks, who were at that time troublesome. He therefore rode across one day from his station in Mannroo to Maher's, and dictated a will, which was drawn up by a person called Henessey, a sort of bush lawyer, and was witnessed by two men named Farrell and Keighroll. This document Maher some years after left in the custody of a friend of his, but after that no trace of it was obtained till after Buckley's death. At that time Maher was in the Wagga Wagga Hospital, suffering from paralysis ; and he received one day a letter from a postmaster of a township in New South Wales, enclosing the will in question. This document purported to be sent to the postmaster by one " Peter Ourley," who said he did not know where Maher lived, but he thought it m!ght be useful to h'm. Maher found people who believed in the genuineness of his story, and they assisted him to prosecute his claim. His application for probate was, however, resisted by the Attorney-General, on behalf of the Crown, and by the administrators of the estate, who alleged that the whole will was a forgery, that it was not in Hennessy's writing, that Buckley never signed it, and that neither Farrell nor Keighroll (who died before Buckley) had witnessed it; on the contrary, they called a

mass of evidence to show that the whole document was written by Maher, the spelling particularly bearing a strong resemblance to that in letters admittedly Maher's. Mr Justice Molesworth, in a very exhaustive judgment, announced his opinion that the- will was a forgery of Maher's and refused to give him probate, of it. The Crown then undertook to prosecute Maher for forgery and perjury, and he was committed for trial some months ago. He has since remained in gaol, but was to have been tried next month He had suffered from paralysis of the lower part of the body for a long time past, and during his examination in court he had to be carried in and out of the building. Since his committal for trial he had remained in the gaol hospital, but for some weeks past he has been gradually sinking, and, as we have said, he expired on Monday night. Maher was sixty years of nge, and a native of New South Wales. His wife, who is mentioned in the will as being entitled to Buckley's property equally with her husband, died some years ago. Maher made no statement before his death as to the will.