UNEXPECTED WEALTH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1044, 16 September 1911, Page 3

UNEXPECTED WEALTH.

Auckland, September 14

A Press Association cable from Loudon yesterday stated that Sergeant-Major Smith, doorkeeper of a music ball at Cardiff, and his sisters, had succeeded to their brother’s estate valued at ,£2,000,000, the proceeds of an oil well in Canada.

One of Sergeant-Major Smith’s daughter is Mrs W. Clay, a resident of Birkenhead, a suburb of Auckland, whose husband is an electrical engineer employed in the city. Mr and Mrs Clay have been living in Auckland for some years.

The uncle under whose will the relatives benefit was one of a family of four. He migrated to Canada as a youth, acquired a property on which he subsequently ’'struck oil,” and, in the course of time, became a member of the Standard Oil Trust. His relatives knew that fortune had smiled upon him, but bad no idea that his wealth amounted to millions. The deceased millionaire married early, and his wife died some filteeu years ago. There were no children; and the result is that his huge fortune is to be divided between Mrs Clay’s father and two sisters, one of whom resides in Australia and the other in Plymouth, England.

Sergeant-Major Smith has a family of five children, Mrs Clay having two brothers and two sisters.

A strange episode in the history of Mr Clay’s own life adds interest to the present romance. His grandfather died worth five millions of money, and. though there were a number of relatives to benefit from the estate, Mr Clay’s inheritance was a large one. As he was only a boy at the time he had not the control of the money, and by the lime he came of age it bad almost entirely disappeared.