Watson v England
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 22 February 1844 |
| Date | 22 February 1844 |
| Court | High Court of Chancery |
English Reports Citation: 60 E.R. 266
HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY
S. C. 8 Jur. 1062.
Evidence. Presumption of Death.
[28] watson v. england. Feb. 22, 1844. [S. C. 8 Jur. 1062.] Evidence. Presumption of Death. A person ought not to be presumed to be dead from the fact of his not having been heard of for seven years, if the other circumstances of the case render it probable that he would not be heard of though alive. The old law relating to the presumption of death is daily becoming more and more untenable in consequence of the increased facility of travelling. The decree in this cause directed the Master to inquire and state whether Mary Bilton was living or dead, and, if dead, when she died, &c. The Master reported 11 SIM. 29. COVENTRY V. HIGGINS 267 that Mary Biltoii was dead, and that she died in 1821, being seven years after she was last heard of. The report was founded on an affidavit made by a person named Mutch, not a relative of Mary Bilton, who deposed that, in 1809 or 1810, when she was about sixteen or seventeen years of age, she clandestinely left the house of her father, who was a small farmer in Yorkshire; and that she had not been since heard of, except that in 1814 she wrote a letter to her sister from Portsmouth, which the deponent saw, stating that she intended to go abroad. The question was whether the above evidence was sufficient to warrant the Master's finding. Mr. Bethell and Mr. Hubback appeared for the exceptants to the report; and [29] Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Cankrien, in support of it. the vice-chancellor [Sir L. Shadwell]. It strikes me that there is considerable difficulty about this case, which, like every case of the same nature, must be determined according to its own peculiar circumstances. Here a girl about sixteen or seventeen years of age, whose...
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