GIFT TO SERVANTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 207, 2 August 1937, Page 7

GIFT TO SERVANTS

LORD ORMATHWAITE’S WILL. PROPERTY OF £107,351. RECIPIENT’S PESSIMISM. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received August 2. 10.15 a.m. LONDON, Aug. 1. Lord Ormathwaite, who died in March, left his entire property, valued at £107,351, equally to Mrs Rose Spary, his former housekeeper, and the wife of his former valet, and her sons, aged nine and 14 years. Mrs Spary says that Lord Ormathwaite was almost blind for two years. “We helped him in every way possible,” she said. “He \y-s very good to us and was goufathe? to our sons, but we were unaware that he was rich. He lived at the rate of £6OO a year. “Queen Mary regularly sent Lord Ormathwaite Christmas presents. Last year she visited him and found him sitting in an invalid chair and tucked a gift of a warm rug around him and chatted for an hour.’’

Mr Spary, who is unemployed, does not expect that his wife and children will receive a farthing. He says the estate is mortgaged to the hilt. Lord Ormathwaite, he says, was unlucky with P.s investments and lost a large sum on the turf and at Monte Carlo. The fact that he left a mansion with 12 servants to live with them was proof that he had no money.

Lord Ormathwaite was His Majesty’s Master of Ceremonies from 1910 to 1920 and a former M.P. for Rodnorshire from 1885 to 1892, Lord Ormathwaite was 78 when ho died. He owned about 26,300 acres.