A strange request

[David Rose]

I hadn't thought about "Secret Trusts" - that would make sense for a wealthy individual to do, especially as he had gone to great lengths in life to keep his child secret.
Not sure where to go with that.

[Ruskie]

Thank you for explaining how you came to this conclusion David. I am a bit of a sceptic, so not sure that you might be jumping to conclusions.  On the other hand of course you might be right.

I'm not sure how you can assume that his birth father was a wealthy man though ....  An inheritance, if he did receive one, could have come from elsewhere ...

[David Rose]

Your response has intrigued me.  Where else could this amount of money have come from?  As a Primitive Methodist he was against all gambling - he wouldn't even have "done" the football pools, he was painfully honest in business and having done the family tree back many generations I know he came from a long line of Cambridgeshire "Ag Labs" (His wife came from a Gypsy/Tinker background)  Neither of which produced wealthy benefactors. 
Also, the fact that he kept the origin of his new found wealth secret suggests to me that he was keeping some kind of agreement/contract to maintain his benefactor's anonymity.
Any new way of seeing this would be much appreciated.
Cheers
David

[Ruskie]

Your response has intrigued me.  Where else could this amount of money have come from?  As a Primitive Methodist he was against all gambling - he wouldn't even have "done" the football pools, he was painfully honest in business and having done the family tree back many generations I know he came from a long line of Cambridgeshire "Ag Labs" (His wife came from a Gypsy/Tinker background)  Neither of which produced wealthy benefactors. 
Also, the fact that he kept the origin of his new found wealth secret suggests to me that he was keeping some kind of agreement/contract to maintain his benefactor's anonymity.
Any new way of seeing this would be much appreciated.
Cheers
David

Sounds like something out of Dickens. 
Did he keep his wealth a secret?
Might he have just been a shrewd business man who amassed wealth through the normal channels rather than having a one off windfall?
I don't know David - it's your family, so you obviously know all about them.
Just playing devil's advocate here .... 

I hope you are able to find the proof that you are seeking and good luck with the search. 

[bedfordshire boy]

Also, the fact that he kept the origin of his new found wealth secret suggests to me that he was keeping some kind of agreement/contract to maintain his benefactor's anonymity.

If the money reached him via a secret trust he probably never knew who the benefactor was.

The bank may have hand written ledgers going back that far but I very much doubt if they would show who the remitter was - which would in any event probably have been a firm of solicitors. And helping with genealogical research doesn't come high on the list of priorities for banks these days.

David

[Redroger]

 I suspect that the key has been unwittingly given in the mention of gypsy and traveller ancestors. Several years ago when a councillor I was helping members of their community in a contentious fight about an unsuitable caravan site, and with a colleague visited a leader of their community who now lived in a house. During the conversation he for no apparent reason suddenly said, "Travellers aren't poor!" and threw open a kitchen cabinet. It and the drawers underneath was stuffed solid with rolls of (then 1980s) high denomination notes; obviously amounting to many thousands of £s. So I wonder if this is the source of his wealth, that community did not (and does not?) trust banks. Perhaps in view of recent experiences they are right!