LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF CHARLES RUSS
OF 70 NEW BOND STREET AND 27 CLIFTON HILL

KEY PROVISIONS

1.          appoints Emily Russ and his friends Robert George Bailey of 51 Clifton Hill, [who declines to act], William George Schoof of 99 St John Street Road Clerkenwell – Watchmaker, and Moritz Muhlberg of Well Court – Fur & Skin Merchant as Executors and Trustees and bequeaths:

a.             £200 to Emily Russ to be paid as soon as possible after his death ‘for her immediate requirements’

b.            £25 to each of the other executors free of duty ‘for their trouble’

c.             the lease of 27 Clifton Hill and all its contents to Emily Russ during her widowhood – she to pay the rent and insure the property and contents; the Trustees to ‘see to the insurance of the said messuage furniture and effects but without being in any way responsible for any omission’

2.          after the second marriage of Emily Russ, the leasehold premises and furniture and effects shall form part of the Residuary Estate

3.          £5000 upon Trust to be invested and the income paid to Emily Russ while widowed and half of that income after her second marriage; the stocks and income from the other half then to fall to the Residuary Estate – together with the first part on Emily’s death

4.          ‘I devise and bequeath all the residue of my estate and effect s whether real or personal unto and to the use of my said Trustees Upon trust’ with freedom to sell or invest as they  judge proper – including property ‘of a terminable or wearing-out nature’

5.          The Trustees to meet ‘my funeral and testamentary expenses and debts and legacies and the legacy duty on any legacies bequeathed free of duty’ and invest the residue

6.          ‘I DIRECT my Trustees to appropriate and set apart out of such investments as aforesaid stocks funds or securities…of One thousand pounds And to pay the income of the investments so set apart or appropriated together with interest at the rate of five per cent upon One thousand pounds from my death until such appropriation or setting apart to my sister Bertha Schone Widow during her life’ and on her death to divide the investments equally to her male children at the age of 21 or female at the age of 21 or marry.  If no such children then the investments shall fall part of his Residuary Estate

7.          The Trustees are to divide the Residuary Estate ‘equally among my children share and share alike as tenants in common subject to conditions:

a.             The income shall be paid to each son reaching the age of 21 ‘during his life or until he shall attain the age of twenty five but that the capital of such share shall not vest in any such son until he shall attain the age of twenty five years’

b.            Should such son die before CCGR or before the age of 25, his share shall be held in Trust and divided equally between the sons of such son on reaching the age of 21 or being female at the age of 21 or earlier marriage

c.             The income of the share of each daughter shall be paid to her for life and then to her children equally, with distribution of the capital at age 21  if male or 21 or earlier marriage if female

d.            ‘And I declare that no child of such daughter of mine who shall take any part of the share of such daughter under any appointment by virtue of the power last hereinbefore contained shall in default of appointment to the contrary be entitled to any share of the unappointed part thereof without bringing the share or shares appointed to him or her into hotchpot and accounting for the same accordingly’ [lawyers were as incomprehensible then as now!]

8.          The Trustees may apply the whole or part of the income or capital of any share due to any child ‘for or towards his or her maintenance education advancement or benefit’

9.          ‘PROVIDED ALWAYS and I declare that in every case in which any estate or interest whether absolute or limited and whether in possession reversion remainder or expectancy is by this my Will given to or in trust for any female the same shall be for her separate use and she shall not during any coverture have the power to dispose of or charge the same or any part thereof by way of anticipation’

10.      The Trustees may invest ‘in or upon any stocks funds or securities of or guaranteed by the Government of the United Kingdom or of any British Colony or Dependency or in Stock of the Bank of England or the debentures or debenture stock or guaranteed or preferencee stock or shares of any Railway or other Company in Great Britain or India incorporated by act of Parliament or Royal Charter and paying a dividend on its ordinary stock or shares’ [the Trustees do not seem to have abided by this – given the spread of investments shown in Mater’s Day Book!]

11.      ‘I appoint my wife GUARDIAN of my infant children during their respective minorities’

12.      Signed and witnessed ‘the eighteenth day of July One thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine’

13.      Probate granted on 16 Dec 1893 to Emily Russ, William George Schoof and Charles Maurice [Moritz] Muhlberg