A High Court judge has rejected a claim by an alpaca charity seeking half of a £1.9 million estate and ordered the money to be shared equally among six charities named in the will of conservationist Candia Midworth.
Master Katherine McQuail said the will, made in 1994, should be construed as making gifts for the charitable purposes Ms Midworth specified, even where the precise legal entities or project names she named no longer exist in the same form. Ms Midworth, who died in 2022 aged 78, kept and bred llamas at her Surrey farm and was a director of the British Llama and Alpaca Association and editor of its Camelid Chronicle.
Under the terms of the will, shares of Ms Midworth’s residual estate were to be distributed equally among six beneficiaries that she specified: British Camelids (the charitable arm of the British Llama and Alpaca Association), the Brooke Hospital for Animals, the Burstow Wildlife Sanctuary, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, the Libearty Campaign of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (a bear welfare project), and the Born Free Foundation’s zoo watchdog project. The estate is valued at about £1.9 million.
British Camelids Ltd challenged the distribution in the High Court, arguing that three of the named causes no longer existed in the exact form specified in the will and a fourth organisation had ceased to exist. Its barrister, Emilia Carslaw, contended the wording of the will was “expressly subject to the condition that the named legatees be in existence at the date of Mrs Midworth’s death in order to benefit,” and that that condition was not met for several of the beneficiaries.
Lawyers for the other charities told the court the charitable activities Ms Midworth intended to support continued to be carried out, albeit under different charity numbers, legal entities or project titles. The Brooke Hospital for Animals, for example, continues to operate supporting working horses, mules and donkeys though under a different charity number from the one recorded in the will. The Born Free Foundation and the organisation now known as World Animal Protection provided evidence that the aims of the Zoo Check project and the Libearty Campaign continue, even if the specific project names are no longer used.
Master McQuail agreed with the charities that the gifts should be construed as directed to charitable purposes rather than to the precise legal form or project title in existence when the will was executed. She said the gifts would not fail merely because a named charity had changed its name or registration number or because a campaign no longer exists as a separate project, provided the underlying charitable purposes continued to be capable of implementation.
The judge concluded that the share of residue intended for the Burstow Wildlife Sanctuary should be paid among some of the parties to the proceedings because the sanctuary’s charitable purposes had not ceased to exist and were being carried on by at least some of the other charities involved. The ruling means British Camelids, the Brooke Hospital, Born Free, World Animal Protection and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection will each receive one‑sixth of the estate, about £300,000. The final sixth will be divided under terms to be decided later by a court‑approved scheme.
The court record notes Ms Midworth also left prints and pictures of llamas and the animals she owned at her death to friends. She had bred llamas at her Surrey farm from at least the mid‑1980s and had been active in camelid breeding circles for decades.
The decision reflects a legal approach that favours carrying out a testator’s charitable intentions where possible, even when the legal landscape of charities and campaign projects changes over time. A further hearing or procedural steps will determine precisely how the remaining share designated for the Burstow Wildlife Sanctuary is to be allocated among the parties ordered to benefit.