Widow leaves £7m to dog rescuers

Published on Friday 19 December 2008 20:46

SO MUCH for a dog's life. Animal welfare groups are in the money after a rich widow left them a staggering £7 million in her will.

Grace Smith's two pampered former rescue dogs, Winnie the lurcher and Harry the collie, enjoyed the finest cuts of steak and are now set for life after Mrs Smith also left them a fortune.

The widow of a retired consultant surgeon, she astutely played the stock market from her 18th- century home on the outskirts of the village of Alves in Moray.

For years she bred bull terriers in the extensive grounds of her home, a former Free Church manse. Villagers knew dogs were her abiding passion.

But no-one had suspected she was a millionaire – until yesterday, when details of the huge bequests became known.

Mrs Smith, 84, left almost her entire estate of 7,052,477 to animal welfare organisations, with almost half going to the Dogs Trust. And she left Winnie and Harry and a cat called Puss Puss 50,000 to ensure all three animals "live out a happy and healthy natural lifespan".

Friends and neighbours yesterday admitted they had been astounded by the news.

Local councillor John Hogg, a close family friend, said: "I had no idea that she was so wealthy. But Mrs Smith lived far from frugally. She lived comfortably and well, and enjoyed life. She and her husband didn't go away on foreign holidays, for example, but that was because of their ties to the dogs. Wherever they went they took the dogs with them."

Mrs Smith's lawyer, Derek Robertson, said she had been a patron of the Bull Terrier Trust for many years. "She bred bull terriers and she had kennels in her garden," he added.

"Towards the end she stopped breeding bull terriers and took in Harry and Winnie, two rescue dogs. The cat just turned up one day and didn't leave."

Mr Robertson said that a close friend of Mrs Smith had agreed to care for the three pets. He added: "The animals were fed the finest meat. They were getting steaks and everything – you name it, they were getting it.

"The two dogs were grossly overweight. They could hardly move because they were so well fed. And when the dogs went to her friend's home after she died they had to be put on a diet."

Mr Robertson, who stressed that Mrs Smith had supported charities such as Save the Children and the Salvation Army, said that both she and her husband, who left his 2,784,066 estate to his wife after his death three years ago, had astutely played the stock market.

Clarissa Baldwin, the chief executive of the Dogs Trust, welcomed the massive bequest. She said: "Her donation will be used in a number of areas within the charity to help care for the 16,000 rescue dogs which pass through our centres each year."

It's a dog's life with 90 million

THE wealthiest pet in the world is said to be a German shepherd dog called Gunther IV, which inherited a reputed 90 million fortune in July 2000.

Gunther IV inherited his fortune from his father, Gunther III, who had been named as the sole heir of the estate of his owner, a German countess by the name of Karlotta Liebenstein, who left her estate of 43 million to her pet dog when she died in 1992.

The dog is said to have a property portfolio that includes estates in the Bahamas, Italy and Germany.

Last year a small white Maltese terrier called Trouble, the pet of Leona Helmlsey, a New York hotelier and multi-billionaire, was left 6 million after she died at the age of 87.

Mrs Helmlsey, who excluded two of her four grandchildren from her will, instructed the executors of her estate, valued at between 2.5 billion and 4 billion, to spend her entire charitable trust on the care and welfare of canines.

Trouble was forced to go into hiding in Florida after receiving death threats.

Eight years ago Patricia O'Neill, the daughter of the Countess of Kenmore, left her 40 million fortune to her pet chimpanzee, Kalu.

Mrs O'Neill, who was married to the former Australian Olympic swimming star Frank O'Neill, had rescued the chimp from captivity in Zaire and took it to live with her at her home in South Africa.

Where there's a will there's a way

The pianist Andre Tchaikowsky left his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company when he died in 1982, and it was finally used this summer by David Tennant in the production of Hamlet. Del Close, an actor, made a similar bequest of his skull in 1999 to Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

&#149 Dacie Moses (1883-1981) left her house to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she had been campus librarian, along with a modest cookie-baking fund, on the condition that students bake there.

&#149 Henry G Freeman Jr (1841-1917), a lawyer, provides $1,000 a month pocket money to White House wives. The money started going out only in 1989, after his last heir died.

&#149 In 1897 in Hoboken, New York, Mrs Elizabeth Livermore requested that a keg of beer, luncheon and a dance follow her death.

&#149 Onni Nurmi (1885-1962) left his Finnish hometown 760 shares of a little fishing-boot company that became the mobile phone giant Nokia.

&#149 Donnie Stauth (1910-1993) left $1.5 million for a museum in Montezuma, Kansas, population 900. It has a room for her 50-year-old bridge club, complete with her dishes.