One wave took a Manchester family off the wreck of the Dalhousie, and their estates went to strangers because no one could say who died first

John Underwood, 45, had worked for years for Brittle and Co. of Wood Street, Manchester. He planned to set up a business in Sydney. He, his wife Mary and their children sailed on the Dalhousie of the White Horse line of Australian passenger ships in October 1853. The ship foundered off Beachy Head. The only survivor, seaman Joseph Reed, said a large sea swept the Underwood family away together. The goods aboard for Underwood and his firm were insured for £10,000. John and Mary had made wills leaving their property to each other, and to William Wing if the other spouse died first. Wing claimed under John's will. He had to prove that Mary died before John, and he could not. In 1855 the court gave John's estate to his next of kin. Wing then claimed under Mary's will, which used a power of appointment over her late father's estate. In 1860 the House of Lords ruled in Wing v Angrave that he had not proved she outlived her husband either, so the property went to those named in her father's will. Section 184 of the Law of Property Act 1925 replaced the rule: when the order of deaths is uncertain, the elder is deemed to have died first. In 2019 the High Court applied it to John and Marjorie Scarle, found dead in their Leigh-on-Sea bungalow in 2016. It held that Marjorie, the younger, survived, and her family took the house.