MRS WINIFRED MCQUILLAN Vs. MRSWINIFRED CHAPMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The parties to this appeal are mother and daughter. Each applied to the District Judge to be appointed guardian of the child of the younger woman, a girl born on the 25th December 1912. The petitions were heard together, with the result that the learned Judge came to the conclusion that the child?s mother, Mrs. McQuillan, had been behaving in a manner in which no respectable married woman should, and that the interests of the child would be best protected by her being placed under the guardianship of Mrs. Chapman, her grandmother. The latter person has accordingly been appointed guardian and against this order Mrs. McQuillan prefers the present appeal.

(2.) The learned Judge rightly observes that the case is an exceedingly painful one and deplores the fact that that such a case should have come before a Court of Justice. At the suggestion of the learned Counsel for the parties we have ourselves endeavored to induce the parties to come to terms. Our efforts have produced no useful result. We must, therefore, consider whether on the evidence the learned Judge of the Court below has come to a right conclusion and whether the case is one in which the interests of the child require that the mother should be deprived of its custody.

(3.) It has been strongly urged by learned Counsel for the appellant that in these proceedings Mrs. Chapman has been actuated more by hatred of her daughter than by a desire for the welfare of the child. It is true that there is a good deal of bitterness in Mrs. Chapman s attack, there is indeed bitterness on both sides. But we are satisfied that she is really anxious for the good of the child, who has lived in her house from early infancy.