Travelling to Mexico

Well, this is intriguing
Daily Mirror 8th February 1938
RICH FATHER ACCUSED BY SONS Two sons, petitioning in the Chancery Division yesterday, were said by counsel to have brought "the gravest charges of fraud, against their father." Mr Justice Crossman adjourned tor a month a petition by Bernard James Piper and Ernest James Piper for the compulsory winding up of T. Schoby and Co., Ltd. Mr W. N. Stable, K.C., who appeared for the company, said the two sons held five shares each in a family company which ran a big wharfinger business of tremendous substance on the Thames. When the petition was finally determined said Mr Stable, he would submit that it was an abuse of the process of the Court and that the proceedings had been brought by these two sons to put pressure on their father in other directions. Mr S. P. Hayward, for the petitioners, said that there were allegations that large sums had been drawn by the father from the company's banking account.

I can't find any follow up, but there are various reports of the barges/vessels built by J. R. Piper. When James Richard Piper died, he was certainly a wealthy man but doesn't appear to have left anything to his son, Ernest.



This doesn't help with why or when he went to Mexico

 

Another article in the Daily Herald of the 8th February 1938 also says
"One the sons was in New Zealand, and the affidavit sworn by the other son was the purest hearsay."
and the barge building firm was, in fact, T. Scholey & Co.

There is a bit about Scoley & Co here

Code:

https://greenwichpeninsulahistory.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/scholey-barge-owners-and-managers/

 

The probate index only names the executors, not the beneficiaries. If Ernest was overseas it would be very hard for him to be an executor, but only the will itself would tell you if he got anything.

 

An Ernest Piper, aged 48, Company Director is on the passenger list of the "Strathmore" First which sailed for Australia on 1 Oct 1937. Under the column PORT AT WHICH PASSENGERS HAVE CONTRACTED TO LAND, he is listed as New Zealand. Country of intended future permanent residence is New Zealand. His last address in the UK is given as R.A. Club, London.

 

FMP has a Passenger Manifest for Pan American Airways Inc. dated 5 Aug 1951, where a Ernest Piper is listed.

I don't really understand it - it has Point of Embarkation - Shannon, Ireland, but under Ernest Piper's name it has Londres 130 Mexico City.

 

Ancestry has the ship's manifest for the SS Europa which includes an Ernest James Piper travelling from Southampton to British Columbia via Vancouver, arriving 6th June 1939. James is listed as a tourist (going to the Empress Hotel, Victoria), occupation Stockbroker and the column asking for the name and address of 'a relative or friend' gives Bernard James Piper, 82, Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, Hants. It also says his passport was issued in Vienna in 1937 and his last permanent address was 28 Rue-de-Florence, Brussels. And it says he's married.

So, Ernest seems to have been an inveterate traveller, so he could have found a wife anywhere

 

Coventry Evening Telegraph 19th April 1954
Mexican students will benefit from the will of an Englishman (Mr Ernest Piper of London) who died in Mexico City last year. Piper lived in Mexico for 20 years and although he gave no sign of apparent wealth, his will now reveals that he has left £200,000 to the poor students of Mexico, to help them continue their studies through the universities. Mr Piper made only one condition in his will, that none of the money be used to help students who wished to finish their education in America.