CLAIMS TO FORTUNE FAIL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 201, 10 September 1937, Page 5

CLAIMS TO FORTUNE FAIL

Our Own Correspondent.)

Darlinghurst Recluse Who. Left £40,000 MYSTERIOUS WEALTH

(from

SYDNEY, Aug. 28. In the event of a decisiou given by the Master in Equity yesterday being maintained, th'e fortune of the late Martin Edward Burke, amounting to about £40,000, will pass to the Crowa as • bona vacantia. The Master held that no claimant to the money had furnished affirmative p'roof of .blood rclationship with tho deceased man. Tho question of who were entitled to share in the distribution of Burke '» cstate has engaged the attention of ihe Public Trustee .and the Courts ever since his death in 1932. Burke left no will. Indeed, wheu he died at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital he wafl thought to bo a pauper. Search of the room he had occupiod in Darlinghurst, however,, disclosed bonds and other seeuritie's for cnore than £40,000. What the source of Burke 'a wealth was remaius a mystery. Ho had lived penuriously and had never even hintedi at being in possession of moaey. Burke came to Australia in the late fifties as a young man. It is believed that he served in the Victorian poliee for a couple of years, but his history has not been definitely traced before the late sixties, when he became gold commissioner in charge of a receiving depot at Kiandra. After that, until 1902, he was postmaster at Bombala, Braidwood, Queanbeyan, and, finally, at George street west, Sydney. Thus he never received more than a cnoderate salary. He never cnarried, and, so far, as is known did he ever contemplate. doing so. Claims to share in the estate simply poured into the office of the Public Trustee from all parts of the world. In 1935 the Actiug ' Master in Equity found that Burko had only one next-of-kin — Mary Hayes, the wife of a small farmer in County Clare, Ireland. Further inquiry was ordered by the Court, and after evidence had been taken on commission in Ireland the matter was again remitted, to the Master. Claims were rejected in batch.es until finally only five were left, these being those of Mary Hayes, who claimed to be a niece of the deceased, and Mary Henderson, Thomas Hayes, John Williams, ■ and Ellen Allingham. In a long judgment delivered yesterday the Master held that Mary, Hayes had failed to substantiate her claim that her mother was a sister oi Martin Edward Burke, and that the other xemaining four claimants also failed. At the request of the aolicitors for Mary Hayes, and in order to give them time to cocnmunicate with their 'prlneipal, it was agreed that settlement of the Master 's certificate dismissing all claims Teceived should stand over for three months. The matter will then again go before the Chief Judge, ger? haps to be finally disposed of.