WHEREAS Allan McLean, late of Christchurch, Gentleman, died on the twelfth day of November, nineteen hundred and seven, having first made his last will and testament, together with one codicil thereto, dated respectively the twentieth day of July, nineteen hundred and four, and the twenty-eighth day of November, nineteen hundred and six, which said will and codicil were duly proved in the High Court of New Zealand, at Christchurch, on the twenty-first day of November, nineteen hundred and seven, by Henry Cotterill, Boulton Merlin Molineaux, and George Francis Gee, the executors in the said will and codicil named: And whereas the said will provides, inter alia, that the “Holly Lea”
property and furniture therein mentioned, and the residue of the trust funds of the testator, subject to the provisions thereinbefore contained, should be held by the trustees of the will upon trust for the purposes of a public institution or benevolent asylum for destitute women to be called the McLean Institute, and that the institution should be open (a) as to the “Holly Lea”
property and furniture, only to gentlewomen or women of refinement or education in reduced or straitened circumstances, and the children, not being over the age of ten years, of any such gentlewomen or women, the testator's special intention being that the “Holly Lea”
property should be reserved exclusively for the use of gentlewomen or women (including their children as aforesaid) who either by their birth, education, previous life, or manner might be able to live in harmony under the same roof; (b) as to the rest of the institution not represented by the “Holly Lea”
property and furniture, to persons of the female sex not being under the age of eighteen years and to the children not being over the age of ten years of any such persons, but no person should be admitted to the institution but such as were poor and of good character and such as had been resident in the colony for a period of three years at least prior to the application for admission and who were not and had not been in receipt of a pension under the Old-age Pensions Act 1898 [Repealed], or any statutory amendment thereof, at any time during the term of three years immediately before admission or in receipt of aid from the Charitable Aid Board or other public institution having the control of the distribution of charitable aid at any time during the term of three years immediately before admission: And whereas by the McLean Institute Act 1909, the Board of Governors to the Institute which had been appointed as provided by the said will was thereby incorporated under the name of the McLean Institute as a body corporate with a perpetual succession and a common seal, and it was in the said Act provided that nothing therein contained should prejudice or affect the provisions of the said will and codicil or anything therein contained except so far as the same were expressly altered or modified by or were inconsistent with the said Act, the intention of the Act being that (except to such extent as therein provided) the said will and codicil should remain in full force and virtue: And whereas it has been found by experience that one effect of the disqualification from admission to the institution of those who are or have been in receipt of a pension under the Old-age Pensions Act 1898 [Repealed], or any statutory amendment thereof, or of charitable aid at any time during the term of three years immediately before admission has been to disqualify from admission persons who apart from such disqualification belong to the particular class which the said testator by the tenor of his said will appears to have intended to benefit, owing to such persons being compelled by extreme poverty to make application for old-age pension or charitable aid while awaiting admission to the institution: And whereas the provisions of the said will do not empower the Institute to sell the said “Holly Lea”
property and furniture: And whereas in the event of the opportunity arising to acquire more suitable premises for the purpose of the institution, or in the event of the Institute finding it advisable to erect more suitable premises on other institution lands, it may become more desirable to sell the said “Holly Lea”
property and furniture or part thereof: And whereas it is desirable that the Institute should have power out of the annual income of the institution to make weekly payments to applicants for admission in certain cases:
The words “High Court”
were substituted, as from 1 April 1980, for the words the “Supreme Court”
pursuant to section 12 Judicature Amendment Act 1979 (1979 No 124).