Isaac Singer left a sewing-machine fortune to children by five women, and a former partner claimed to be his widow

Isaac Merritt Singer made his fortune improving the sewing machine and selling it on instalments. He had children by at least five women. He had two with his wife, Catharine Haley, whom he divorced in 1860. He had eight or ten with Mary Ann Sponsler, who lived with him in New York from 1836 to the late 1850s. He had five with Mary McGonigal, reportedly one with Mary Walters, and six with Isabella Boyer, whom he married in New York on 13 June 1863. Sponsler, still calling herself Mrs Singer, had him arrested for bigamy, and he left for London in 1862. He lived in Paris with Isabella. After the Prussian invasion of 1870 they moved to Paignton, where he built Oldway Mansion. He died there on 23 July 1875, two months before it was finished. His will, made in Paris on 16 May 1870, left his English property and most possessions to Isabella, property in the United States to McGonigal and Sponsler, $10,000 to Haley and $500 to their children. His son William, who had sided with his mother in the divorce, got $500. Sponsler claimed she was his lawful widow by common-law marriage^†. Isabella had to go to court to distribute the estate. Oldway became a country club in 1927, and Paignton Council bought it in 1946 for £46,000.