bequest

In 2013 it emerged that Joan Edwards, a retired midwife from Bristol, had left a £520,000 bequest to "whichever government is in office at the date of my death for the government in their absolute discretion to use as they may think fit".

The Conservatives also recorded a surplus of £17.9m, helped by a £10m bequest in the will of supermarket tycoon Lord John Sainsbury.

But for the Orlando Museum of Art, which recently received a $1.8 million bequest from the estate of Margaret Young, that gift couldn’t have come at a better time.

The $1.8 million bequest could go a long way toward easing the museum’s financial woes.

But Ms. Young, who was an artist herself, said her bequest could only be used to buy artwork for the museum’s permanent collection, not for operating expenses like employee salaries or the museum’s growing legal bills.