I first learned of his passing while at RCAF Station Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, when an Adjutant delivered to me a large bundle of sealed papers containing my copy of the will and probate. 

My earlier apprehensions were realised when I read page after page of the pillaging of the estate by Mann (the chauffeur), who had Power of Attorney of the Colonel's finances up to the time of his death.  

Colonel Margesson was found mysteriously drowned in his bath tub with no one present.  At the time he was becoming quite senile and completely dependent on Mann.

The chauffeur and a devious friend and lawyer converted large sums from the estate for building a race track, a hotel and tavern, taking treasures and even ancestral paintings that later hung in Mann's public bar of an inn.

The will ended with the cryptic line...

Whosoever shall contest this will, shall forfeit his share

effectively blocking any legal contest.   This statement was binding in England and Wales but was not so under Canadian law.  Unfortunately, my late father failed to pursue and examine the calumny so the treasures of several hundreds of years were lost and only meagre bits and pieces survive as a token of the past.

Even after the probate and distribution of the estate in 1941, trunk loads of documents, deeds etc. were sent to the Westminster Bank in London for safe keeping.   The bank advertised these trunks to my family and would consider claims.  My sister, Nora, visited the bank and examined one trunk containing early maps, histories of Findon and documents that, because they were written in Latin, she considered worthless.  All of the trunk loads were eventually destroyed by the bank.

January 2004

Richard David Margesson P.Eng.

  b1915   d1999

Having spent many years in sales of different products in several locations, I must have got know about 2000 people and my father was the most talented person I ever met.

He was a confident super high-class educated salesman. 

He was a good sailor, weekend cottager, golfer (with 2 hole in one), interior decorator, oil painter, builder of old wooden sailing vessels, writer, reader of history and genealogy and inventor.  He was noted for extreme enthusiasm when relating even little anecdotes

After service in the Marine Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force, in Nova Scotia during WW 11 and several subsequent jobs, he started a slag business as an employee on behalf of three owner companies in Hamilton Ontario near the two large steel mills.  Part way into his 27 career in aggregates (slag) he patented a method of expanding slag into lightweight aggregate, with royalties throughout the world flowing modestly to the employers.

He stood six feet two inches tall, was handsome with jet-black hair, blue eyes and in summer, always sported a good dark summer tan.  He thinks his English born mother must have had Spanish blood in her, as he resembles County Cork Spanish Armada survivor descendants. 

He was enamored with wealthy people but was too insecure to make some personal investments and spent almost all of his wages on the finer things in life, with any affordable purchase having to be of best quality.

Like many talented people he had serious faults — very critical of others, impatient with loud angry outbursts, very aloof, a loner and a complainer.  He was a dreamer, like his father, at his own admission. 

He had no ability to relate to me and my three sisters on a personal level and could not offer sympathy, nor advice when we had day-to-day problems, which role my mother filled well.  He was good at supporting our sports interests and the family was always together, especially going north on weekends to the summer cottage on an island.  Neighbours and relatives said Dad was far too tough on me, particularly in light of the fact that I am self- motivated and had part-time and summer jobs as a student.

Richard Somerset Margesson BA, Toronto Canada.