Miss Roberts’ will said her bank annuities worth £8753, 5 shillings were to go on trust, “for life unto any immediate or direct descendants of my said brother or nephew who shall bear the name of Roberts-Gawen only, and from and after his or her decease, or in case of failure of any such immediate or direct descendant of my said brother or nephew who shall bear the name of Roberts-Gawen only,” upon trust for certain specified charitable societies.
[...] The difficulty of determining the true construction of these dispositions favours the conclusion that upon the whole this is a case in which the limitations were not intended to be confined to one particular taker, but were intended to include a series of persons taking as “descendants” in the ordinary sense of the word, that is to say, singly and separately and successively according to the ordinary mode of limitation or descent of a landed property.
All these are however questions of immense difficulty, so that I am not at all sure, notwithstanding my disinclination to hold the gift void for uncertainty, that such might not be the true result in this particular case.
In such a case, when we talk of the intention of a testator or testatrix, what we really mean is the fair interpretation to be given to the words used.
The duty of the Court is to put a fair meaning on the terms used, and not, as was said in one case, to repose on the easy pillow of saying that the whole is void for uncertainty.