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Empty accounts, secret

Wills are a window on people’s views of the world, and their hopes for the people and things they care about. Nikki Macdonald digs out the last wishes of prominent Kiwis to find out who and what they valued.

Katherine Mansfield’s dad got a brass pig with hog hairs to wipe his pen nib. Radio fan Michael Joseph Savage parcelled out his wireless sets to his mate, along with his guns and ammunition.

Charles Goldie signed his 14,483 pounds, six shillings and one penny over ‘‘to my wife absolutely’’ on a single page of notepaper from Sydney’s Petty’s Hotel.

But Burt Munro didn’t even mention his 20-year obsession – the speed demon 1920 Indian Scout motorbike that set a world land speed record.

The things people cherish enough to pass on in their wills, and who they gift them to, are a window on their lives and values, and the times they lived in.

Although they are public documents, wills can also be deeply personal, revealing secret children and family schisms. And even a century ago, they sometimes led to conflict and court.

The wills of prominent Kiwis tell us something about who and what they held dear. And whether their fame swelled their bank account or chased them to an early death.

Wills become public documents through the probate process, which involves verifying the will through the courts. For estates worth more than $15,000, wills have to be legally approved.

Thousands of Kiwi wills have now been digitised and are available online through Archives New Zealand.

Canterbury University historian and Canterbury Museum research fellow Lyndon Fraser has spent two decades wading through wills as a window on earlier lives. But there’s still something incredible about seeing the real deal, he says.

‘‘I still get a buzz out of handling something that has a ribbon round it, that is almost falling apart, that’s fragile and that someone has written back in the day. And the West Coast ones I was looking at, had been gnawed by mice and rats... There’s something about the magic of handling a big fat probate file, and you’re not quite sure what’s in it. It’s quite an exciting adventure.’’

While sometimes dull and formulaic, wills can give an insight into everything from wealth to religion, what people value and how that changes over time, and the networks that bind lives and loves, Fraser says.

‘‘They can tell us something about the way that people had connections to each other, and what they valued in this world and the one to come.’’

What people gift speaks of what they hold dear, but also the values or fashions of the time, Fraser says. In the 19th century, hair and hair pieces were big.

It’s hard to imagine a modern will itemising a radio, so Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage’s bequest of his wirelesses says something about how precious they were to him and their value as a communications tool in an isolated nation.

But often the gift of things is more about sentiment than value, Fraser says.

‘‘We grieve through objects, so people would use their wills to leave particular dresses to a certain niece, particular pieces of jewellery to someone else, curtains, bedding, watches, all sorts of things. So the way we think about wills is they are a kind of act of remembrance... That’s really profound anthropologically, just about our species, really. The way that we put this incredible meaning on objects, and we see that in a big, big way in wills.’’

Writer Mansfield wrote her last requests in August 1922, five years after being diagnosed with tuberculosis of the lungs. She died less than six months later, with much of her work still unpublished. Her will left the proceeds of any sales to her husband John Middleton Murry, but also included instructions that the world will be pleased he did not follow.

‘‘I should like him to publish as little as possible and to tear up and burn as much as possible He will understand that I desire to leave as few traces of my camping ground as possible.’’

The will of poet James K Baxter, however, makes no mention of his writings and his profession is described as ‘‘school publications officer’’. The only clue to his stature as one of New Zealand’s great literary figures is an official’s handwritten scribble on the front of his probate documents, querying the listed occupation. ‘‘This is the famous J.K. Baxter!’’, the note adds.

As well as the bequest of the brass pig, which was in fact returning a present from her father, Mansfield gave her Spanish shawl to a friend and her fur coat to her mother-in-law. She also specified homes for her carved walking stick, Italian toilet boxes, her writing case and copy of Shakespeare.

Legendary broadcaster and domestic goddess Aunt Daisy also left very specific instructions, including that her famed recipes and any royalties, should go to her daughter Barbara.

Her Wellington house she divided, quite literally, between Barbara and her son Fred. Fred was granted free use and enjoyment of the ground floor bedsitting room, drawing room, bathroom, kitchen and ‘‘toilet conveniences’’, while Barbara had dominion over the rest.

Doyenne of crime writing, Dame Ngaio Marsh, left a long list of beloved items to friends and family. They ranged from a Dresden porcelain figurine of a child with a hare to jewellery and carefully described timepieces. The tortoiseshell clock with pearls and rubies encircling the dial, for example, was not to be confused with the carriage clock inscribed as a gift to her father.

Marsh gifted her Folio edition of 12 Shakespeare plays to friend and actor Jonathan Elsom, while the University of Canterbury was given first dibs on 200 of her books.

In general, the wills of prominent Kiwi women seem more personal and detailed than those of Kiwi men. That’s not an aberration, says Fraser. Of the wills he has researched, he found those of women tended to be more colourful than the long and legalistic last testaments of men.

But the wills of women who died before 1884 leave out a huge chunk of society. Until then, married women could not own property. So only single women, or widows, could make legally valid wills.

The wills of notable Kiwi men were not, however, devoid of sentiment. Former Prime Minister Sir Julius Vogel’s will did not specify gifts to his children, as he didn’t know what he would own when he died. But he was anxious they should read that as a ‘‘want of affection for them’’.

‘‘I should like something to be given to each of my dear children and to my dear sister Frances as a memorial of me and of my love for them.’’

Wills are a snapshot of connections – and breaks. Jet boat inventor Bill Hamilton took in his nephew Sholto, after his sister Leila died when her son was just 10 days old. Hamilton’s will cements Sholto’s status in the family, with Hamilton gifting him an equal share of the estate, alongside his daughter June and son Jon. While June and Jon got the house chattels, Hamilton also gave Sholto one of the three cups he received for motor racing.

‘‘There’s something about the magic of handling a big fat probate file, and you’re not quite sure what’s in it. It’s quite an exciting adventure.’’ Lyndon Fraser Canterbury University historian and Canterbury Museum research fellow

Ngaio Marsh showed the value she placed on her housekeeper by leaving her $1000 – the same as she gave her godchildren and Christchurch’s Court Theatre. Aunt Daisy also left money to her housekeeper, who she called a friend.

In a handwritten will in beautiful copperplate, New Zealand’s first female doctor, Margaret Cruickshank, doled out money and mementoes to nurses she worked with, as well as charity to the church.

Wills also give glimpses of tragedy. Ha¯ wera writer Ronald Hugh Morrieson once said to fellow author Maurice Shadbolt, ‘‘I hope I’m not another one of these poor buggers who get discovered when they’re dead’’.

With a heart condition and the damaged liver of a heavy drinker, he wrote his last rites in March 1971. He died less than two years later, aged 50, after an alcoholic Christmas binge.

His one-page will contains just two points – that his entire estate should go to his aunt Doris Johnson and that the sideboard made by his grandfather Charles Johnson should stay within the family.

The accompanying probate documents show he died with just $14.11 in his current account and $3.16 in his Post Office Savings Bank account. His other belongings included a billiard table and half a house.

The probate file of infamous mass murderer Stanley Graham records that he died with no will, though that was no doubt the least of the worries of the family left behind after he killed seven people. His estate was valued at 10 pounds, 14 shillings and eight pence.

Writer Robin Hyde’s will, written four years before her death, also bears the stamp of dashed dreams. Among the bequests of her manuscripts, a bronze fawn, paintings, her trusty typewriter and her books and bookcases, is a promise of 1000 pounds for her secret son Derek. Born at a time when single motherhood was not socially acceptable, he was fostered out.

When Hyde (real name Iris Guiver Wilkinson) took her own life in 1939, her estate’s worth was estimated at just 190 pounds, two shillings and six pence.

Her bequest to Derek may have been later met by the sales of her books. Either way he eventually inherited something of much greater value – her manuscripts and notebooks. He later wrote a book about her life.

Finding the historical wills of prominent Ma¯ ori is more difficult, for several reasons. Many Ma¯ ori (as well as many Pa¯ keha¯ ) simply would not have made one, say Otago University professors Lachy Paterson and Angela Wanhalla (Ka¯ i Tahu).

That might have been because the Native Land Court already had rules for how land was passed down, because they did not have access to lawyers, or because they did not own enough to warrant making a will.

Ma¯ ori might also have seen written wills as a colonial imposition on their traditions, Wanhalla says. Ma¯ ori had their own form of oral will, called an o¯ ha¯ kı¯. A person approaching the end of their life would stand before assembled relatives and set out their final instructions.

That could include the fate of possessions, but also matters of utu, or reciprocity.

They could be either negative, such as revenge for past acts, or positive.

And even for those Ma¯ ori who did record their last wishes, it’s mostly not as simple as plugging a name into Archive New Zealand’s search function.

Most Ma¯ ori wills written before 1968 are held by the Ma¯ ori Land Court, whose archives are less easily accessed. However, Wanhalla and Paterson did find wills for some Ma¯ ori women while researching their book He Reo Wa¯ hine.

Newspaper articles about court challenges show Ma¯ ori wills did exist, Paterson says. Others made their wishes known by more public means.

Nga¯ ti Te Whatuia¯ piti leader Te Hapuku put an advertisement in an 1878 newspaper announcing that Poukawa Lake, on his land, should never be drained or ‘‘meddled with’’ after his death.

Some Ma¯ ori embraced wills as a mark of modernity, or to ensure the people they wanted to get land or taonga, did actually get them.

That was important in the case of wha¯ ngai or adopted children, who were not automatically recognised as successors by the land court.

‘‘I think that’s why wills are so beautiful and interesting as historical documents, because they tell us about how people understood their world at that time,’’ Wanhalla says.

‘‘They give us insight into kinship connections and how families are formed, and who is included in those families, like wha¯ ngai.

‘‘What’s also interesting about wills, is they are pointing us to future aspirations, as well. People are telling us something about what they want happening to that land, or whatever those things are that are being passed on, and how those are to be valued by future generations.’’

Focus

en-nz

2022-01-16T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-16T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281887301672429

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