To Shield Wife’s Honour

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 81, 27 June 1927, Page 12

To Shield Wife’s Honour

How Clergyman Disposed of Another’s Child

How a clergyman tried to shield his wife, and in consequence was summoned. was told at the Guildhall, London, when the Rev. Inglis R. Monteath and his sister, Mrs. Agnes Higgins, both of Park Avenue, Bedford, pleaded guilty to having abandoned a child in a manner likely to cause it unnecessary suffering. The child was found in a perambulator at Liverpool Street Station. Under the pillows was an envelope containing £1 10s. and a letter requesting that the baby should be taken to Dr. Barnardo’s Homes, the writer undertaking to pay for its support.

Detective-Inspector Cairns said that after inquiries had been made, Mr. Monteath made a voluntary statement. In this he said his wife left him 18 months ago and went to Bristol, where she gave birth to a child, of which he was not the father. Unwilling to publish his wife's sin, he did the best he could think of to get rid of the child without endangering its welfare.

Mr. Monteath said he wished to take the sole blame for what happened. Mr. Alderman Jacobs: Why did your wife leave you?—She wanted to go back into the world. She had taken to dancing. It became a craze and she turned right against me and my work. Defendants were bound over.