HERMIT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1940, Page 8

HERMIT

TREMENDOUS LEGAL BATTLE RIVAL CLAIMANTS. OVER £700,000 INVOLVED. When Henry Thomas Coghlan died, leaving a fortune of more than £700,000, a tremendous legal battle started between rival claimants for the’estate. A reward of 10.000 guineas was offered for the production of a will ... for that was the reason for all the commotion. No will could be found. Nfever was that old drama, “The Missing Will” given more dramatic twists on life’s stage than in the case of the “Coughlan millions.” The will sought was that of Henry Thomas Coghlan, son of Lieut.-Gen. Roger Coghlan, an Irish officer, and Miss Emma Broughton, daughter of the Rev Sir Thomas Broughton, sixth baronet. From his parents the son inherited £lOO,OOO, which he increased by parsimony and investment till he became a very wealthy man. f On the death of his wife he shut himself up among the books and pictures with which his London house was crammed. He shut himself off from the world. Even his known relatives never visited him. He had quarrelled with them, and did not see one of them for fifty years. When he died the disposition of his property caused much speculation. He had made such a mystery of his movements, and had been so uncommunicative, that nobody knew where his will was to be found, or, indeed, whether he had left one. He had had no regular solicitor. For a long time he had gone to a number of legal practitioners in turn, distrusting and quarrelling with one after another. So there was no solicitor to throw any light on the matter. STRANGE DISCOVERY. As no will was found among Coghlan’s papers it was thought that one might be hidden somewhere in the house, and accordingly the building was thoroughly searched by persons who had no illusions about wills. This is a point of some importance; for in a similar hunt the document sought was handled several times and thrown aside as worthless, because the searchers thought that a will must be engrossed on parchment. Every nook and corner of Coghlan's house was searched with scrupulous care, one of those interested in the result having good reason to know that a will may be found in the most unlikely place. The case he had in mind was remarkable. A certain peer made a will in favour of his second cousin, cutting out his rightful heir. Subsequently, owing to the cousin’s conduct, the testator drove to London and obtained his will from his solicitor. With the intention of destroying it, he returned to his country seat. He died soon afterwards, and the rightful heir, who knew nothing about what had happened in regard to the will, took possession of the estate. Only a little later the house was destroyed by fire. 'As the peer’s carriage had been left in the courtyard overnight it escaped the flames, though the panels were slightly scorched. This necessitated its being sent to the coachmaker’s for renovation, and while it was there somebody found in one of the pockets the will which the peer had brought from London for the purpose of burning it. Consequently, the fortunate cousin dispossessed the man who should have been heir. No “will” however, rewarded the searchers in Coghlan’s house, in spite of the fact that they spent a month on their task. Nor was the result of advertising for a will any more satisfactory. It seemed that the old recluse had died intestate.

In the end his immense fortune, which amounted to about £700.000. exclusive of realty, was divided among the next of kin, who were only four in number. One of them was Sir Henry Delves Broughton, ninth baronet, whose father, curiously enough, out-did Coghlan as a recluse. Though a very rich man, almost a millionaire, he lived alone for forty years on the top floor of a house near Waterloo Bridge. Sir Henry, in conjunction with a guarantee and trust society, entered into a bond to the sum of £1,356,678 "of good and lawful money of Great Britain” for the due administration of the estate according to law. By this bond it was declared that if any will should be discovered the agreement should be void. Sir Henry advertised for other next of kin. and several persons are said to have received sums from him out of the estate; but the distribution caused a great deal of strife. 10,000 GUINEAS REWARD. Where, it was asked, did the Coghlans come in? About ten years before his death the old recluse went to Ireland and inquired for his relatives in the district where the Coghlans had lived for centuries. He failed to find any. because they had left a generation before for Dublin and the Colonies. It was believed that he had nevertheless made a will under which he left his estate to them. Was he the kind of man who would leave a great estate derelict knowing that, in the event of the non-appearance of any of the Coghlans, it would go to his maternal relatives, whom he cordially detested?

So strong, was the belief of many in the existence of a will that a reward of £10.500 was offered for its production if it benefited the paternal relatives. This caused a sensation in legal circles. Coghlan’s estate was the largest ever left by an intestate up to his day. and now here was the biggest offer of its kind made this century though it fell a little short of one made in a probate case many years previously. On his death-bed, a Dublin man told his doctor and several other persons that he had made his will and settled all his affairs; but afterwards no document could be found. As his estate was worth more than £250.000 and it was understood that he had left most of it to charities, a reward of £lO.OOO was ottered for the production of a will, and a further £l,OOO was offered by a stockbroker who believed that the deceased had made a large bequest to his family. HOAXERS’ TRICKS. It was suspected that the will had been stolen, and this was intimated with great tactfulness in the advertisement offering the reward: "Any person or persons with whom the said will and testamentary papers may have been deposited, and who will make a communication (private, if more agreeable) so that the said

will, as duly executed, may be brought forward, will become entitled to the reward of £lO,OOO, which sum shall be deposited in the hands of any three respectable persons (the Secretary of the Bank of Ireland being one), whom the parties making the communication may name, to be held in trust, and paid over the moment the said will is proved.”. , But nothing came of the offer. The will was never discovered. As a result of the offer of ten thousand guineas reward, wills of Coghlan were "found" all over the country. A startling report came from South London. A grocer’s assistant was alleged to have discovered on the flyleaf of an old copy of Bishop Heber’s life a will signed, "H. T. Coghlan.” The hoaxers made full use of their opportunities. Heedless of results, they let their invention have full fling. But actually the advertisement offering ten thousand guineas reward for the production of a will was completely unproductive. LEGEND OF IRELAND. Just as futile was recourse to the law by persons claiming to be next of kin on the paternal side. One of them. Sir Anthony Weldon, an Irish baronet, alleged that Emma Broughton, the intestate’s mother, was illegitimate, and could not therefore leave any next of kin. He claimed to be next of kin on Coghlan’s father's side; but it was held that he had not made out his case.

The wife of a Dublin commercial traveller also failed in her claim. Stating that she was a cousin of the deceased, she applied to the Probate Court to set aside the letters of administration in order that she might recover the estate. Her suit was dismissed on the ground that she had acquiesced in the Chancery proceedings.

Long and painstaking research in Ireland came to nothing. Parochial records there do not go very far back, and for this reason the tracing of a family tree is particularly difficult. A good deal of documentary evidence supported the claim of a certain family; but the searchers could not get together a watertight case. Little has been heard in England about the "Coghlan millions” in recent years. But at one time the litigation about this great fortune seemed likely to drag out endlessly. Still, the case has not been lost sight of in Ireland, where the Coghlan fortune has become almost a legend.