GREWSOME BEQUEST TO SON
Vindictive Englishman Left His Right Hand to Offspring with Whom He Had Quarreled.
Probably the most grewsome bequest ever named in a will was that made by Philip Thicknesse, a dissipated Englishman, who died in 1792. Some years before his death he had quarreled bitterly with his son, Lord Audley, and to spite him had placed on the outside of the family mansion a board bearing this inscription in large black letters:
“Boots and shoes mended, carpets beat, etc., by P. Thicknesse, father of Lord Audley.”
Finding he was about to die, he sent for his lawyer and drew up a will containing the following extraordinary clause: “I leave my right hand, to be cut off after my death, to my son, Lord Audley: I desire it may be sent to him, in hopes that such a sight may remind him of his duty to God, after having so long abandoned the duty he owed to a father who once so affectionately loved him.”
The dead man’s wishes were scrupulously carried out, and his severed hand, inclosed in a hermetically sealed casket, was forwarded to his son. There is no record as to how Lord Audley received his unwelcome legacy or how he disposed of it.
Elkhart [IN] Truth 15 October 1909: p. 5
Note: Grewsome was an alternative, even more common spelling of “gruesome” in the 19th c.
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead and on Twitter @hauntedohiobook. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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