MARRIAGES DISSOLVED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 912, 4 March 1930, Page 1

MARRIAGES DISSOLVED

DESERTING WIFE AND HUSBAND WAR ROMANCE SHATTERED “He promised to book my passage to England and cable £SO for the cost of the trip, but the only thing he did was to stop my allotment!” This story of her marriage during the war was related to Mr. Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court today by Constance Evelyn Meikle (Mr. Thwaites), in support of petition for divorce from Hylton Collin Meikle, oa the ground of desertion. Petitioner said that shortly after her marriage at Carterton on August 15, 1917, her husband left in the N.Z.E.F. In 1919 her husband secured a military scholarship in London, and wrote asking her to come Home. “It was a 26-page letter, T 3 of which contained minute instructions exactly how I should get Home, to whom I should speak and what I should read on the trip,” she said. She could not trace him in England until 1928, when she obtained a maintenance order against him. In 10J years she had received £216. She traced him to Liverpool through the High Commissioner’s Office and Scotland Yard, but he disappeared again, and arrived back in New Zealand in June last year. Petitioner said she had written asking her husband to return, but after he obtained his discharge from the military forces the tone of his letters changed. A decree nisi was granted. WIFE WENT TO AUSTRALIA “I dont know why she left me. I was always very good to her, but when she told me she never wanted to see me again it wasn’t very encouraging.” Thus Jonathan Charles Trevithick, or Charles Harcourt Trevithick (Mr. Simpson) supported his petition for dissolution of his marriage with Jean Trevithick on the ground of desertion. Mr. Sullivan withdrew' the respondent’s answer to the petition. Petitioner said that three years after their marriage in 1918 his wife went to live at Wellington under medical advice. The following year he wrote appealing to her to return home, but she made various excuses and finally he received a letter announcing that she had left for Australia. His wife had been very unhappy and dissatisfied when living with him. At the time of his marriage petitioner was going under the name of Charles Harcourt Trevithick. A decree nisi was granted, petitioner agreeing to pay maintenance for the wife and child at the rate of £1 2s 6d weekly.