Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
Leonard Woolf (1880-1969)

Leonard Sidney Woolf

Leave well enough alone

Leonard Woolf’s final will was a revision of an earlier will that was, itself, a minor revision of a still earlier basic will. The three wills were made in ten-year intervals (1949, 1959 and 1969), although the neat mathematical progression was coincidental, not deliberate.

 

Wills: 1949 and 1959

In 1949, when Leonard was nearly 70 and sound in mind and body, he made a basic will with relatives and friends as his main beneficiaries.

Ten years later, he was ten years older but still compos mentis, and he made a few minor and one major revision. Minor: he altered the amounts of specific gifts. Major: he named Marjorie Tulip Parsons as his sole executor and sole residuary legatee.

Within two years of Virginia’s death, Leonard and Marjorie Tulip Parsons, nicknamed Trekkie, began a relationship that was to remain strong for more than 25 years and conclude only with his death. Throughout that time she was, and remained, loyally married to Ian Parsons, a publisher and friend of the Woolfs.

Once is an accident, twice is…

Parsons was conducting a long-term affair of his own. Meanwhile, Leonard and Trekkie seem never to have consummated their relationship despite their profoundly close relationship. Plus ca change. Leonard and Virginia were also deeply and mutually in love and supposedly passionate but their relationship, so far as I can determine, was also unconsummated.

In April 1969, Leonard had a stroke. Nearly 90, he was physically as well as mentally weak. Serious illness concentrated his mind. He discussed a new will with Trekkie and instructed his solicitor to increase a few gifts.

His estate totalled slightly more than £155,000 – more than a million pounds today (possibly two million depending on conversion methodology).

Among his beneficiaries were two relatives from Virginia’s side of the family: Quentin Bell and Angelica (Bell) Garnett. Quentin was the son of Virginia's sister Vanessa and her husband Clive Bell, and author of an early and highly illuminating biography of Virginia.

Angelica was also Vanessa’s daughter, but her father was Vanessa’s artist lover Duncan Grant.

Leonard and Virginia’s housekeeper, Louie Mayer, remained with Leonard after Virginia’s death, serving him for 36 years. He wanted her to be able to buy her own house after he died, and he left her a sum adequate for that purpose (in those days, a few thousand pounds did the trick).

Leonard gave his home, Monk’s House, to Trekkie who, in a transaction involving his papers, sold it to Sussex University. The university later transferred the property, with an endowment, to the National Trust. The house and garden - the latter was the repository first of her, and then his, ashes - is historically important on both their accounts, and has become a shrine to Virginia.

Decisions, strategy and tactics

The section of his will that proved troublesome contained his gifts of £500 each to his brother Philip's three children: Cecil, Maria and Philippa. He did not alter these gifts. But change they nevertheless did, behind his, and almost everyone else’s backs.

Another section might have contained, innocently but insidiously, the seeds of trouble. Leonard increased his gift to his niece Clare – daughter of his sister Clara – to £5,000. His original gift to her (in the 1959 will he was revising) might have been £500. If it was, then this single-digit increase – the addition of a zero at the end – might have thought that a similar increase should be applied to Philip’s children too.

The plan was simple. Leonard dictated his changes to his solicitor, who arranged for a new will to be typed up. He then brought the new will back to Leonard for his client’s approval.

Leonard did not read the new will himself. It was recited to him. And as only a few sections of the old will were changed, only the altered sections were read aloud, even though the entire document had been retyped.

This approach was risky. With word processors, you can change a single letter, word or paragraph, leave the rest of the text unaltered, and be fairly certain that the finished document will reflect your precise changes (word processors are not actually foolproof – a stray finger or the cat hits a key, or the software goes haywire).

With typewriters, documents invariably were retyped in their entirety, opening the door to error anywhere in the document. In the typewriter era, important documents were proofread by two readers comparing the two versions letter by letter, comma by comma. According to one account, only one reader proofed Woolf's will, and she consulted the wrong version (see Judith Adamson quote below).

When the will was read shortly after Leonard died, the errors (the extra zero in £500) were immediately noticed – by Trekkie's husband Ian.

The lucky beneficiaries, Cecil, Maria and Philippa, were reluctant to accept £500 when there might be a possibility of $5,000. They went to court, alleging undue influence by Trekkie.

If only...?

For her part, Trekkie was willing to give them £5,000 each and finish the matter. The solicitor nixed that idea: as Leonard’s executor, and aware that he intended £500, he said that she had to defend her corner.

Two ugly years later, the three children withdrew their allegation of undue influence against Trekkie - waiting until the day before the case was to be heard. An out-of-court settlement was agreed: the three children each received more than £500 but less than £5,000. Louie Mayer could finally buy her house.

Leonard Woolf biographer Victoria Glendinning asserts that the entire brouhaha could have been avoided. Trekkie could have paid the three children with her own money and covered the legal niceties via a deed of variation.

In retrospect, a codicil instead of a revised will might have been the better course. A codicil would have been shorter and scrutinised more carefully. Errors would have been easier to spot.

Bottom Line: The challenge to the will was financially costly and emotionally nasty. Better proofreading and perhaps better legal advice might have avoided it all. A younger stronger Leonard would have handled the situation more adroitly. He left it too late.