Scottish Court of Session Decisions

This was a petition at the instance of Mrs Minna Amy Edwards Moss or Mackenzie for access to the only child (a girl aged two years) of her marriage with the respondent Osgood Hanbury Mackenzie “at all reasonable times,” and “in particular” to be found “entitled to have the said child sent to her at Poolhouse for two whole days in each week,” and to have access to the child “on the other days at all reasonable times during the day at Tournaig House, or where the child may be for the time, and that in either case outwith the presence of the said Osgood Hanbury Mackenzie or of Dame Mary Hanbury or Mackenzie, his mother, or anyone on their behalf.”

The petitioner stated that since her marriage in 1877 the respondent, her husband, had “treated her with much neglect and unkindness,” and that the differences between them had principally arisen from pecuniary matters relating to the manner in which her funds were settled on her by her marriage-contract. In February 1880 she left her husband's house at Inverewe, Ross-shire, with his consent, and until the following June remained with her parents at their residence near Liverpool. During this time she was in weak health, which she alleged was partly caused by her husband's treatment, partly by the climate of the west coast of Ross-shire, which had disagreed with her, and partly by the pain of leaving her child. In June she wrote to her husband expressing her intention of returning to Inverewe, and there rejoining him and her child. This letter contained certain proposals as to money matters. She received an answer from her husband, in which he informed her that he had left Inverewe and had gone to reside with his mother in Tournaig, at least in the meantime. The letter contained this sentence—“Should you like to come here, and write to say so, a room will be prepared for you.” The petitioner went to Tournaig, where she remained for a month, when owing to certain painful circumstances “she left her mother-in-law's house.” She then took Poolhouse, two and a-half miles from Tournaig, with the view of being near her child, but being by her husband's legal advisers informed “that the actual access which her husband is prepared to permit is that she should see her child for an hour three times a week at Tournaig House on the condition of her coming unaccompanied, but the child to be attended by either the nurse or Lady Mackenzie.”

The respondent lodged answers, in which he explained that his reason for leaving Inverewe and going to reside at Tournaig with his mother was the fact that his resources had been much crippled owing to the marriage —contract trustees having at the instance of his wife's friends withdrawn from his use her portion of £10,000 settled by her marriage-contract, and in particular by their having called up a sum of £6000, part of that portion which had been lent to him on security. In these circumstances he offered to receive the petitioner as his wife at Tournaig House and to resume conjugal relations without reference to the past, the petitioner being mistress of the establishment as after the marriage; “Alternatively, in the event of the petitioner still wishing to reside at Poolhouse, to give her access to the child, provided she came unaccompanied and did not take the child out of the house except accompanied by its nurse, at all times when she might choose to come; and further, to arrange that during one or two hours on certain days in each week the child shall always be kept either in or immediately about the house, so that the petitioner might depend upon finding it.”