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Henry Montague (Monty) Chevallier Cobbold F/Mc Married Married Married Married Married Married: 1886-Sep-29 Charlotte Maud Ashby Watson-Davis Fc | |||||
| Violet Chevallier Cobbold [CFT #333] Born: 1893 Died: 1919-Aug-14 |
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| b Jamaica d St Antony's, Sherborne, Dorset Occupation Nun Education Doorselle College, Ghent. A Nun's Will Case Reproduced from THE TABLET, 10th July 1920 (p7) In the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division on Tuesday, before Mr. Justice Hill, a probate action was heard arising out of the will of Miss Violet Chevallier Cobbold, a member of the community of the Religious of Christian Instruction, St. Anthony's, Sherborne, who died on 14th August last year. The plaintiff, Mr. John Alderson, as Executor, propounded a will dated November 6th 1918. The defendants, Mr. Felix Rudolph Chevallier Cobbold (#334), Mrs. Frances Louisa Chevallier Hodgson (#331), Mrs, May Chevallier Darbey (#329), and Mrs. Chevallier Hare (#332), brother and sisters of the testatrix, pleaded that the will was not duly executed, and that the testatrix was not of sound mind, memory, and understanding when the will purported to have been executed. Mr. Rawlinson, K.C., for the plaintiff, said, as reported in the Times, that in 1911 the testatrix was sent as a pupil to Doorselle College, Ghent, and lived there happily until 1913. She returned to England; then afterwards she went again to Doorselle and said that she had had a quarrel with her stepmother. She asked to be allowed to stay on at convent. At that time she was a protestant, but early in 1914 she was received into the Church, and she remained at Doorselle until the war broke out, when with other refugees she came back to England and went to St. Anthony's convent school at Sherborne. The mother superior of the school took a great interest in the testatrix, who was anxious to become a nun. In order, however, to try the testatrix in different surroundings she was sent to London as a governess, and obtained clerical work at the War Office until February, 1916, when she returned to St. Anthony's. In that month she entered the novitiate. At that time her whole income was only ?4-18-00 a year, and as her father was a young man she had no prospects. She remained at St. Anthony's during 1916 and in January 1917 she took the religious habit and became in religion Mme. Antoinette. In that year her father died and she became entitled to ?3000, the value of the estate in the present action. As she had benefited so much from the school she was anxious to help it. In 1918 she expressed her desire to benefit the convent, and she said that she wished to leave all her property to it. In July or August 1918 she caught a bad chill, which by October had developed into tuberculosis. Before then she had made a will on a printed form, but she had misgivings as to the effect of that document, and on October 30th Mr. Mayo, a well-known solicitor, living at Sherborne, was sent for. He drew a will on that date from instructions. The will was executed, and Mr. Mayo and an inmate of the convent were the attesting witnesses. Mr. Mayo took that will and the will on the printed form away with him, and destroyed the latter. The testatrix got better, and by arrangement Mr. Mayo called on November 6th with another will, which was virtually a copy of the will of October 30th. By the will all the property was left to Katherine Welch, without imposing any legal trust upon her, to make provision for the maintenance and benefit of St. Anthony's Convent. The testatrix was perfectly sane. The plaintiff gave evidence of the due execution of the wills of October 30th and November 6th, 1918, and of the testamentary capacity of the testatrix on those dates. Cross-examined by Mr. Willis, for the defendants, he said that the testatrix was about twenty-five years of age at the time of her death. He did not know that her father had made it a condition when she went to the school that nothing should be done to induce her to become a Catholic. The printed form of her will which he had destroyed after the due execution of the will of October 30th left the property to the convent. Medical evidence was called to prove that on October 30th and November 6th the testatrix was of sound mind, and Mr. Willis said the family of the testatrix were now satisfied that the will was the free will of their sister, and that they no longer wished to contest its validity. Mr. Justice Hill: Very well, I pronounce for the will of November 6th 1918. The costs of all parties to come out of the estate. The above was given to the Trust by Dr Virginia van der Lande (#2008), a step cousin once removed of Violet's, she having written it up in Nottingham in 2015, with a little manuscript footnote: 'The nuns at St. Teresa's, Effingham, where I attended school 1938-1948 belonged to this order. Mother Bernadette knew Violet as a novice at Sherborne and said she was 'very beautiful.' |
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