• Preamble

  WHEREAS Duncan McDougall, late of Pirinoa, in the Wairarapa district, sheep-farmer, by his will, bearing date the sixth day of October, eighteen hundred and eighty-two, appointed one Matthew Robert Miller trustee and executor thereof, and gave, devised, and bequeathed his real and personal estate to his trustee upon the trusts therein declared; and the said testator, Duncan McDougall, directed his trustee to stand possessed of the net annual income arising from his real and personal estate upon trust to pay the same to his wife, Ellen McDougall, during such time as she should remain his widow and unmarried; and from and after the death or second marriage of his said wife, whichever event should first happen, the testator directed that his trustee should stand possessed of the trust funds as therein defined upon trust for all his children, or any his child, who should be then living, and who being sons or a son should attain the age of twenty-one years, or being daughters or a daughter should attain that age or marry under that age, and, if more than one, in equal shares and proportions: And whereas the said Duncan McDougall died on or about the twenty-fifth day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, without having altered or revoked his said will, which was duly proved by the said Matthew Robert Miller in the High Court of New Zealand, at Wellington, on the fifteenth day of May, eighteen hundred and ninety-one: And whereas the said Duncan McDougall left him surviving his wife, the said Ellen McDougall, and eight children—namely, James Duncan McDougall, John Archibald McDougall, Samuel Dugald McDougall, Euphemia Septimus McDougall, and Ramsay McDougall—all of whom attained the age of twenty-one years some time since: And whereas the said Septimus McDougall died in or about the month of August, nineteen hundred, intestate, without ever having married: And whereas under the said will each of them, the said James Duncan McDougall, John Archibald McDougall, Samuel Dugald McDougall, Euphemia McDougall, Ellen McDougall, William Rutherford McDougall, and Ramsay McDougall, takes only a contingent interest in the said real and personal estate of their late father and in the trust funds thereof, subject to and contingent upon his or her surviving the widow of the said testator: And whereas it is the desire of all parties that each of the said children now living of the said Duncan McDougall shall have vested in him or her absolutely, subject only to the interest of the testator's widow as defined in the said will, an equal share in the said real and personal estate and trust funds, instead of having only such contingent interest as aforesaid: And whereas such object is not attainable otherwise than by legislation:

  The words “High Court” were substituted, as from 1 April 1980, for the words “Supreme Court” pursuant to section 12 Judicature Amendment Act 1979 (1979 No 124).

BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—