More Info →Walter Buller details of will Ev Post 2 Oct 1906

Description

SIR WALTER BULLER'S WILL.

SOME GENEROUS BEQUESTS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 24th August.

It is announced this week that Sir Walter Lawry Buller, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., of Wellington, New Zealand, and of Pondtail Lodge, Fleet, Hampshire, barrister-at-law, formerly Native Commissioner and Magistrate in New Zealand, a director of the United Gold Mines of West Africa, the Federated Mines of Rhodesia, and the Blue Spur and Gabriel's Gully Consolidated Gold Company, has left estate in the United Kingdom of the gross value of £15,462, of which the net personalty has been sworn at £14,914.

Probate of his will, date 22nd December, 1894, with three codicils, has been granted to his sons, Mr. Arthur Percival Buller and Mr. Walter Leopold Buller, barristers-at-law, both of the Royal Societies Club, St. James-street, London, to each of whom he bequeathed 100 guineas. He left £500 to his sister, Mrs. Lilla Bourke, £200 and land costing £800 to his grandson, G. Madocks, £5000 to each of his sons, Arthur Percival and Walter Leopold, and to his daughter, Mrs Laura Madocks, and he left the Papaitonga Estate and £21,000 upon trust for his said children for life, with remainder in each case to their issue.

Sir Walter Buller left his collection of Maori curios, birds, etc., and pictures of New Zealand life to his sons in equal shares, requesting them to retain this collection in the family, but if they should not wish to do so, first to offer the collection as a whole at a fair valuation to the New Zealand Government, for the proposed National Maori Museum, and subject thereto that the first offer of the collection of birds should be made to the Hon. Walter. Rothschild, "who has in his museum at Tring the finest collection of New Zealand birds." And he made the following bequests: —

• £1000 upon trust to found a Maori scholarship, to be called the Buller Scholarship, tenable by Maoris, but not by Europeans or half-castes;
• £100 to the Bishop of Wellington for St. Paul's Cathedral and the work of the church, of which he was a member;
• £100 to the Wellington Benevolent Society;
• £100 to the Wesleyan Church, in the Wellington districts of which his father, the Rev. James Buller, was "so distinguished an ornament";
• £50 to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington;
• £50 to Dr. Barnardo's Homes;
• £50 to the Home for the Aged Needy at Wellington;
• £50 to the Wellington Convalescent Home;
• £5 on each Christmas Day to his old servant, Margaret Ross.

The residue of the estate is left in equal shares to the children of the testator.

Identification

Date

October 2, 1906