A widow said the Duke of Portland had faked his own death as a London shopkeeper, and the coffin was opened to settle it

William John Cavendish-Bentinck-Scott, 5th Duke of Portland, never married. He built tunnels and underground rooms beneath Welbeck Abbey and was succeeded by a cousin as 6th Duke. In 1896 the widow of Walter Thomas Druce, Anna Maria Druce, applied to exhume her father-in-law, Thomas Charles Druce, co-owner of the Baker Street Bazaar, buried at Highgate in 1864. She claimed Druce was the Duke living a double life, that the 1864 funeral was faked, and that her son was heir to the Portland estates. In 1903 she was admitted to a mental home. George Hollamby Druce, a son of T.C. Druce's first marriage living in Australia, took up the claim and formed a company that sold shares to the public; over £30,000 was subscribed. In 1906 the family sued the owners of the Portland estates. In 1907 George charged Herbert Druce with perjury for swearing he had seen his father die. On 30 December 1907 the Highgate coffin was opened under Inspector Walter Dew. It held the body of T.C. Druce. The main case was dismissed as frivolous and vexatious, and the company collapsed. Perjury charges followed against the main witnesses; Robert C. Caldwell, a New York witness to a fake burial, was found insane and died in an asylum in 1911. In 2026 Welbeck remains the seat of the Portland estates.