Lunatic Asylum

[Merry]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Can a lunatic make a will? Are they "of sound mind"?
They might well have assets at death, but can they choose where the money went?

One of my distant relations was put in an asylum in 1870 aged 38. He remained in institutions for about 16 years, at which point his aging parents arranged for a Lunacy Inquisition, which found him to be of unsound mind and which allowed him to be cared for in the community. On the 1891 census he is living in a private house with a male carer. He spent the next ten years escaping from his home in Torquay and catching London bound trains as he had a fixation about changing his will which he had written in 1869. Unfortunately he never made it to London and presumably had he done so, any change to the will would not have been acceptable. He died in 1900 aged 68 and the majority of his considerable estate passed to his 100-year-old mother who outlived him for a few months.

I have no idea what the tax situation would have been in those days, but I doubt it would have been helpful for all his money to pass to a previous generation! Maybe that was why he was intent on changing his will?

[Kit]

If his parents had put him in the asylum in the first place maybe he was unhappy about it and wanted to nominate someone else?

[Olde Crone]

Depends when you make your will as to whether you are of sound mind or not. If he had made a will before he was considered mad, then that would stand.

Sorry, I have tried to resist but the pedant in me has won......the mother left 1000 guineas, the brother and sister each got 100 guineas. (There! I feel much better now)

OC

[Merry]

Originally Posted by Kit

If his parents had put him in the asylum in the first place maybe he was unhappy about it and wanted to nominate someone else?

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

Depends when you make your will as to whether you are of sound mind or not. If he had made a will before he was considered mad, then that would stand.


OC

The 1869 will did stand, so he must have been considered OK at that point, but any future will would presumably not have been valid.

I hadn't really thought about the relationship between him and his parents. I think he was disruptive to some of their business plans, so I hope that wasn't why he was locked away