DIVIDING £30,000,000.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3551, 15 June 1912, Page 3

DIVIDING £30,000,000.

HOW COLONEL ASTOR’S HUCE FORTUNE WILL BE ALLOCATED. FOUR-FIFTHS FOR SON. Colonel John Jacob Astor, who l ost His life in the Titanic disaster while returning from his honeymoon, left a huge fortune. He inherited £14,000,000 from his father, and £3,000,000 from his mother, and by judicious investments bad increased these sums to a grand total of £30,000,000. Mr. Aster’s will, made just beforo his marriage last September to Miss Madeleine Force, has not yet been read, hut it is understood that fourfifths of this huge estate go to Mr Vincent Astor, his son by his first wife, who will come of age next September.

The other fifth of the estate will go to Vincent’s ten-year-old sister Muriel- Should there be a posthumous daughter Miss Muriel will, have to divide her share equally with the new arrival, and surrender still more if there should be a son. Miss Muriel Astor is by arrangement already in enjoyment of a large income from the Knickerbocker Hotel, of which she has had the usufruct.

Colonel Astor’s widow and Mrs Ava Willing Astor, his first wife, have both been already provided for, the former by her marriage settlement, and the latter at the time of the colonel’s divorce. The actuals amount of the marriage settlement given to the young widow those in a position to know are unwilling to state, but it is declared to be not less than. £200,000.

The disposition of this enormous estate, the largest single one ever bequeathed in the United States, will be rinder the will of the colonel’s father, WTlliam Astor, filed in the surrogate’s office over forty years ago. Mr. Vincent Astor will be the first man in direct descent of the family who will hold his fortune in fee simple to do with as he pleases. -.'