ORFORD EARLDOM

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1931, Page 2

ORFORD EARLDOM

YOUNG SUCCESSOR. ALREADY HAS THE ESTATES. (By Telegraph —Per Press Association) AUCKLAND, September 27. The death has occurred of the Earl or Oxford, aged seventy-six years. He came to the Dominion at the end ot 1928 for the benefit of his health, and purchased a property at Manurewa, where lie lived with the Countess of Oxford and one daughter. The body will be embalmed .mil •<■lo 1.. England LONDON.' s-iu.-mb-r 27. The cousin of the Earl oi Orf-jrd % (who died at Auckland, '' -.'W Zealand), inherits his estate. The cousin is an eighteen-year-old youth, Mr Robert Walpole, Who succeeds to Baronies. Mr Walpole wa s travelling in a caravan with his mother and his sister when the news of the Earl’s death at Auckland, reached England. Priqr to his going to New Zealand the Earl of Orford handed over his estate to Mr Walpole, who then became the possessor of nine thousand acres of land. It was then estimated that if the Earl of Orford lived another .three years, the British Treasury wouljd lose an enormous sum in death duties, through thi s gift of his estate to his cousin. The Earl of Or- • ford’s life exceeded .that period only by a few weeks. The housekeeper at Wolkerton Hall was informed by telephone of the death of the Earl, and she said that she was sure Mr Walpole did not yet know of the Earl’s death, but he was reaching his home by the caravan on Monday.

Mr Walpole’s father and brother were killed in the Great War. The Earl of Orford’s authoress daughter, Lady Dorothy Mills, intended going to New Zealand in October to visit her father.