1938-08-06 — Page 11

THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 6, 1938.

LINCOLNSHIRE MAN'S £13,000,000 STUMBLE

He Still Sleeps In An Old-Fashioned Nightshirt

The

London (By Mail). lanes and villages of Lincolnshire will shortly be visited by a man who knew them when as a youth he served his time as a butcher's apprentice and who to- day is Canada's "mystery" -gold king.

as

He is Bill Wright. No one ever dreams of calling him

Mr. William H. Wright, perhaps they should, seeing that he has made a fortune of some- thing over £25,000,000.

And anyhow, he prefers to be called plain "Bill." He's like that - a plain, unassuming man with only two passions in life.

One is for keeping as much as obscurity as he can manage; the other is for horses.

It is because he has suceeded so well in achieving the former desire that he has become Canada's "mystery" man.

Few people have ever met him. Fewer still have ever had the chance of a real talk with him. No one knows his real age, but there are those who say he must be get- ting on for seventy.

He has never married, and lives a bachelor life in a brick house he had built for him out in Ontario, There he spends his time breeding and attending to his beloved horses. He doesn't like visitors-indeed, he is in bed by nine o'clock every night, so that can rise early to go out and look after his horses.

Legends have grown up thick about him. It is, for instance, dec-| lared that despite his immense wealth, which is still growing with every week that passes. Bill Wright insists on sleeping in old-fashioned nightshirts instead of new-rangled silk pyjamas, and that when he has any business letters to answer he writes them sitting in his shirt- sleeves at his kitchen table.

It was because as a youth he loved horses that he prevailed on his father to apprentice him to a butcher in his native. Lincolnshire. -for the butcher was also a horse- lover and allowed him to took after the couple he owned and to ride

one.

But Bill did not want to be a but- cher. He wanted to see something of the world. He decided that the best way to do it was as a soldier. So he joined the Hussars, and was in due course drafted out to India, IN LADYSMITH Surrounded by horses, Bill's life Was at this time cast in happy mould. Then came the Boer War. Bill and his comrades were sent to South Africa,

He survived the Siege of Lady- smith, fought hard and rode hard until the end of the war came. Then, as a time-expired trooper, he was sent back to England.

He decided to try his luck in Canada, and reached Toronto with six shillings in his pocket!

But he had heaps of grit. People were at that time talking of gold in Ontario, and Wright, ́ with an- other young fellow with whom he made friends, decided to have a shot at looking for it.

Then two struck off into the rock- bound, swampy, bagbrush-covered country to the north. To keep going they had to take odd jobs on the

Bet

hurry towards a rocky little hillock a slight mishap that had led to the from which he might be able to see firing of the single shots. And they something of the surrounding.coun- were the luckiest shots ever fired, tryside and perhaps locate his Within the hour both men were partner.

back at the spot where Bill had stumbled, working with their pro- spector's picks. They soon esta blished that what Bill had stumbled over was an outcrop of gold.

LUCKY FALL He hurried too much, for sudden-

sible they separted, arranging that if either got lot or needed assistan-ly he stumbled against a piece of ce he should fire two pistol shots rock jutting out of the earth and as a signal.

fell headlong.

Bill was pushing his way through a dense patch of bush one day when he suddenly halted in his tracks. There had come to his ears what sounded like the distant crack of a pistol shot.

He waited, and when the sound was repeated knew it was his par- tner's signal for help.

Wasting no time, Bill began to'l

As he turned to raise himself his eyes widened. For there in the rock that had brought him down was a streak bearing the dull but unmis- takable gleam of gold.

over

From the mining carried on there since Bill has drawn £13,000,000. And he has other gold- mining, and business interests.

But the wealth that came to him from a fortunate stumble haa It was characteristic of Bill never changed him from the modest, Wright that before investigating quite-speaking man he always was further he marked the spot and then When the Great War came went on

he with his search for his joined up as, a private, and insisted partner.

on remaining so, despite that fact He soon found him. It was only! that he was a millionaire..

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