John Edward Blake

[thistlebay]

Hi again All,
In answer to your question Ros, yes, I do have the will of Elizabeth Marshall nee Blake but not the full packet, it was written up on 4/2/1926.  I also have her death cert, she died 30th June 1935 of bronchitis and senility aged (it states her age as 98 but she was really 94) she was born August 1841 and bpt 10/8/1841.  She had no children.  That would be great if you photograph the full packet Ros thank you so much for offering to do this for me, that's great news, whenever you're able to get there, Monday sounds great though.

This is what I can't find out, it states in the will that she is living with her nephew John Blake, and that would have been at The Elms in 1926 I presume, but states in the will that she has already transferred a farm to John worth £4000, so I don't know if it was the Elms that she transferred or another property.  Apparently she bought a small holding next to Gilmore Creek when she was a little older.  I can find John and his relative Julia on the 1943 electoral roll together in Gilmore, but I can't find John Edward after this, but, I found Julia living in 1949 living in Flower Hill with her brother James and nephew Edward John, this is definitely not John Edward by mistake. John Edward didn't die til 1951 so where was he? I believe he liked a drink, I don't know how true this is, but this is family heresay, and that he set fire to his house and went to live with Julia but I can't find any information on that incident, and as far as I can see throughout all those years from around 1930 John Edward is living with Julia in Gilmore.  On the 1930 Elizabeth Marshall is living in Windowie Gilmore but can't find Elizabeth living in just Gilmore with John and Julia prior to 1930!  This gets more and more intriguing.  There is a mention of a property in the will which says it is to be sold by the Trustees and divided amongst various family members etc, I am not sure if this would have been The Elms or not though, which I know was sold in 1941 but have no details of the sale.

Thanks JM, so why would a will need to be proved at all?? If after a number of years maybe the executors have died or maybe they dont' know if the will is the last will made so there is some confusion as to whether it is a valid will, would these be valid reasons to have it proven or maybe someone is contesting the will I presume?

Yes, I will definitely post an update as and when more info is obtained cupoflife.
Regards and thanks to all once more.
Catherine

[rosball]

"The Elms" up for auction in 1936
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139304198

Here it says "the Elms" was purchased by J BLAKE in 1936
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104228600

Here it says "the Elms" is up for auction 1940
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138991400

In 1937 John BLAKE is charged with failing to control rabbits on "the Elms"
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139295860

In 1940 "the Elms" is in trouble for not ear-marking sheep (or similar), property owned by J. BLAKE (but the person responsible was Milton Manns).  So he has a manager?  And lives elsewhere?
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138991817

adding :
Sounds like a beautiful property 

[majm]

I have been the named co-executor for a number of deceased estates, mainly within my family, but also for a former neighbour.  Usually the other exec has been a family member also.   I have not ever sought to have these probated, basically because the Wills provided clear directions as to how the estates were to be administered by the beneficiaries, and all the real property involved has been without any encumberances, and the beneficiaries had been aware of the Testators' wishes for many years, as these matters had been discussed by the Testators with the beneficiaries.   So the people who were to receive x and y and z from their family member knew what was what and who would make sure and the practicalities etc, beforehand. 

It is important to remember that death duties at federal level were abolished in the late 1970s and NSW followed in the early 1980s.  One of the functions of Probate results in an accurate valuation of the Deceased Estate at a known point in time.

 
http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/maintop/view/inforce/act+13+1898+cd+0+N

http://www.legalanswers.sl.nsw.gov.au/guides/wills_estates/tax.html

ADD
Some of my living older generation have contacted me after reading my replies here and one in particular has asked me to add "And once it is all sorted and distributed the solicitor who drew up the will should be given letters from each beneficiary confirming that the executor has completed the tasks involving them, in a 'timely and goodly' way"   

('timely and goodly' !  wow .... now I am left wondering .....  does 'goodly' have a formal definition in accordance with the NSW law http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ia1987191/ or in the colonial act http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/iao1897n4237.pdf    or just be a word used within rural NSW circles of people born around 100 years ago ! )

Cheers,  JM

[thistlebay]

Good morning Ros and JM
Thank you Ros for all your help in obtaining all the info for me.  Thanks also to JM for all his advice on my dithering knowledge of probates etc.  The 'goodly and timely' was absolutely not possible in this particular case.  The case dragged on and on due to John Edward trying to buy The Elms over a period of nearly 4 years whereby it was then repossessed if that is the term to be used.  He paid £450 deposit to buy the property and land in 1936, he paid another £1600 as part payment around 1937/8 (still have to go through dates again) but couldn't raise the remainder of £2550 and so it was taken from him and sold at auction in 1941.  They retained the deposit from him to pay fees accumulated and believe me, there were such massive fees to pay between the solicitor and the PT and other bodies, mainly the solicitor involved though.  They gave him back £700 of the £1600 he had paid part payment, I don't know why, as the fees did not cost anything like that amount of £1350.  It states he lived in Windowie, I know that is where Elizabeth Marshall lived around 1932 so think this must be the house he lived in but isn't the house that he inherited from Elizabeth as it says he sold his property to raise the £2000 to buy the The Elms.  There were 5 lots of deeds attached to Elizabeth and still have no idea as yet where they all were.  Strangely, John Edward refers to his inheritance in this matter and says he can put that towards the payment of farm, the inheritance he mentions is £500.  That was the original amount in the will to be paid to him, but it was changed to £1000 and was duly signed off by Elizabeth.  Now I don't think that John Edward knew this as he wouldn't have referred to his legacy as £500 so I do wonder who was fooling who!
Julia the half cousin was extremely thrifty and wanted almost everything!  I also looked for any mention of a fire but found none, only referring to fire insurance payments.

There was a recompence left by Elizabeth to a Ralph Thompson for his hard work for last 13 years.  Unfortunately Ralph deceased 1 month before Elizabeth died.  Julia (I think she succeeded but will have to read again) wanted this overturned and for her to have the money of £500 instead of it going to his widow and retained her own solicitor in this and a couple other matters.
When The Elms was sold, all legatees had been informed, the ones in USA were apparently denied their legacy, I need to read more on this also.  I do wonder if Julia had a hand in this also. Although the legatees in Ireland were initially informed, (The brother of Elizabeth was written to after a lengthy conversation between solicitor and Elizabeth who was probably confused and named him), but he was actually 8 years older than Elizabeth so was long deceased.  Fortunately the letter was delivered and a son answered to the letter.  This son being the brother of John Edward Blake. There is no mention of a legacy to anyone in Ireland after this.  There was correspondence initially between a solicitor in Cork and the solicitor in NSW in this regard but nothing came of it.   I was told this only 2 weeks ago that there was a solicitor named Hegarty in Cork who was disbarred for fiddling many accounts from overseas legacies etc.  Lo and behold, the solicitor taken by the son William Blake in Cork was this same Hegarty who is mentioned in the correspondence of the probate packet.

ok have to post another one as it exceeds limit of characters.

Catherine

[thistlebay]

So, back to Julia who at this stage in 1940 was about 71, Julia wanted more! Her legacy was £3000 from Elizabeth, also she had a house, I'm not sure how she got this house, she inherited all household goods of Elizabeth also.
The will stated that after all money and debts, legacies paid out etc, then all the residue was to be shared as follows:  Julia to get 50% of residue and 50% to be shared equally amongst her nephews and nieces of which there were approx 26.  Julia was the daughter of Elizabeth's half brother.
I don't think it states that Julia is included in this remainder of 50%, but Julia fought for her share also of the residue 50% to be shared amongst the nephews and nieces.  Greed knows no boundaries eh?

Elizabeth originally left a sum of £500 to 2 of Julia's brothers and £300 to another brother of Julia's.  Six months after writing up her will Elizabeth made a codicil to it stating that the £500 legacied to Charles, her nephew (Julia's brother) shall now be paid to Julia to be held by her in trust to invest the same in fixed deposit with the bank and to pay to Charles the interst thereon for his life and after his death the sum of £500 shall be held by Julia for her own use!!! WOW!!!  Julia certainly knew how to use her womanly charms I think.  I wonder what happened to the £500, it certainly didn't go to Charles when Julia died in 1953 as it doesn't mention Charles in her will and he didn't die til much much later.
So for now that is as much as I can put together on this, but there is still the matter of the 2 probates one month apart in 1974.  Have read very quickly on the will of Edward John, I think this is as you said JM, that this came to light after Edward died and his sisters inherited from it.  Edward was the grandson of John Galway Blake who died in 1880 and it would seem there was some kind of land or something not collected on back in 1880.  The estate left by Edward was not too bad in size and value was around £16000.  Something I didn't know was that Edward had 2 sisters! One was Theresa who died in 1983 and the other, the eldest child of Samuel (Julia's brother) and Matilda Battye, was Dorothy Matilda who married Mr Newquist in NSW and then moved to USA living in various places.  Dorothy only died in 2006!

I also found the sister Mary of Margaret and John Edward through the packets kindly obtained by Ros, I knew she had gone to USA from Cork but couldn't find her in USA, I did find a death for her though in 1943 (sister Margaret in NSW died in 1944) and she was living in some kind of welfare place, where I suppose people had to go if they had no money.  Mary would have been a legatee of Elizabeth also being her niece.  But Margaret states in her will date March 1944 that she inherited from her sister Mary E Blake who lived in USA. 

Ok thanks again to both Ros and JM for all your help and advice.

I will update this topic as and when I find out more info on the family.

Regards
Catherine

[cupoflife]

Thanks for the update, what a very interesting case. Between Julia, the shonky solicitor, and the PT, it is a wonder that anyone else got to inherit anything at all... there's nothing like a bit of greed and feud over money to quickly deplete such a considerable estate.
ps: thanks Ros for all your hard work at the archives 

[thistlebay]

How true on all counts! 

[majm]

Yes, agree    (with OP and Cup, and of course with their goodly and timely comments about Ros)

[Aurora]

Was John Edward Blake the nephew of Elizabeth Marshall who lived at Gilmore, near Tumut?  Elizabeth was married to Richard Marshall from Killarney.  My husband's g.g. grandmother, Mary Barry   also from Killarney, stated on her shipping record to the the question "relatives in colony", answered that she had a cousin, Richard Marshall of Gundagai.  Mary also settled in Gundagai and married Charles Phillip Bourke/Buk.  When her first husband died, she married James Irving.  Richard died at Gilmore, Tumut in 1907 and Elizabeth died in 1935.  They have a very elaborate headstone in the North Gundagai Catholic Cemetery.  regards, Aurora.