SUDDEN ACCESSION TO WEALTH

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 213, 2 September 1908, Page 4

SUDDEN ACCESSION TO WEALTH

Loudon, July 13. Another romantic accession to unexpected fortune is reported. A little Lincolnshire bov, Jack Nowed, the eight-year-old son of Mr. I!. 1.1. Nowell, solicitor. 0 f Uurton-uii-Ilumber, and clerk to the local urban council, has noon informed that he is heir to £200,001).

The money comes to him from Mr. John Waddington, who died at the age of sixty-nine at Hinting tlrangc, Cheltenham, lie was a cousin of Admiral Tombleson, of Barton, whose daughter is the wife of Ilr. Nowell.

The estate is valued at £2115,000, and with the exception of four legacies if £10(10 each, three of which go to cousins of til,' fortunate boy, Jack Nowell unexpectedly becomes entitled to the whole estate on the death of Mrs. Waddingham. A condition of the will is that the heir takes the name of Wnddinglo.il. Krnest. Thomas Burnett Douglass, nf the colliery village of Wingate, in the county of Durham, as the ''Express" announced on Saturday, has made a successful claim in Chancery to an estate.

" H all seems like a dream," said Douglass. M had to ask my wife again this morning if it was really true. The thing takes some grasping, I mean." Mr. Douglass' good fortune has come to him from the estate of Mr. William Davison Harnett, of the Terrace. Peckham lioad, Oambenvell, who was a very distant relative, not previously known to those who now receive his money. Mr. Douglass, who was born at Sunderland in 1573, was the son Of a sawyer, and on growing up obtaiufd employment at the Wingate Colliery. He had a great-grandfather who, for : tunatqly for his descendants, was of a distinctly, romantic turn of mind. This gentleman's name was Harnett, and he used to paint designs on the walls of houses at a time when wall-paper had not made its appearance. While working in the house of a Mr. Barber hte fell in love and eloped with his employer's daughter, and became wealthy. With the exception of Douglass' grandmother, all his children died unmarried, and each iel't a good sum, which went to the Mr. Harnett who died two years ago, and whose heir-at-law Douglass is.