Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Agnes Goudie or Irvine, residing in Edinburgh, raised an action for divorce against her husband, Erasmus Irvine, on the ground of desertion. The following facts were established at the proof:—The parties were married in Lerwick in 1863. Defender had shortly before returned from the Australian Gold Fields, and pursuer had known him only for a few months before their marriage. After their marriage they stayed a few months in Shetland with pursuer's mother, and then sailed for Melbourne. Defender was not successful in business there and became addicted to drink, and they returned to Lerwick in 1869. They afterwards lived in London, and then in Edinburgh, where defender opened a grocer's shop, but ultimately he became insolvent and sailed for New Zealand in August 1875, leaving pursuer in Edinburgh, and she never saw him again. There were seven children born of the marriage. Defender wrote to pursuer regularly for the first twelve months. It had been arranged that he was to send for her when he got employment. He told her he was unsuccessful, and was generally employed as a gold digger. He sent her £5 or £6 after he left. She supported herself and the children by keeping lodgings. The last letter she received from him was about the end of 1876 or beginning of 1877. He told her to address her letters to him to the Post Office, Dunedin. In his last letter he said he was going 300 or 400 miles further west. She wrote several letters to the last address he gave her without getting a reply. She afterwards got another address from a friend of her husband's in Edinburgh, and wrote several times to it also without getting a reply. None of her letters were returned. The last she wrote was in the end of 1878 or beginning of 1879. An intimate friend of the parties had received one letter from defender shortly after he went out to New Zealand. Defender was working in Dunedin at that time, but things were then looking very dull. Defender did not allude to his wife or family in that letter. Another friend of the parties knew a person who lived near where the defender was working about the year 1878, and who gave him defender's address at different places on the west coast of New Zealand.

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Pursuer got defender's address from him more than once. This friend wrote that he was surprised defender's wife did not hear from him, as he was doing well, and afterwards wrote that defender had ceased to correspond with him because he had spoken about his wife.