Subject

Town Clerk in the Borough of Hammersmith in 1948.

Our colleague Andrew Behan has researched this man: Horace Cornelius Slim was born on 30 September 1895 in Smethwick, Staffordshire, the son of Cornelius Slim and Bertha Elizabeth Slim, née Stoddard. His father was an Auctioneer and Valuer. His mother died when he was 4 years old in 1899 and the 1901 census shows him living with his widower father and paternal grand parents at 149 Church Lane, Smethwick. His father remarried in 1906 to Elizabeth Margaret Keen who was a Milliner and the 1911 census shows the family living at 58 Arden Road, Smethwick. Horace Slim was a 15 years old Maltsters Clerk. He went on to become a solicitor and in 1925 married Mabel Nellie Pullen in Birmingham South.

In 1928 he was appointed as the Deputy Town Clerk of Hammersmith Borough Council and from 1938 to 1946 he is listed in Post Office telephone directories as living at 68 Richmond Park Road, East Sheen, SW14. In 1947 he and his wife moved to 247 Latymer Court, Hammersmith Road, W6 and in 1948 he became the Town Clerk of Hammersmith Borough Council until 1958. After he retired he moved first to 31 Keith Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire, (it became Dorset in 1974 following local government reorganisation), and later to C39 Avenue Court, 20 The Avenue, Bournemouth where he died, aged 82 years, on 6 March 1978. He was survived by his widow and probate records show his estate totalled £22,701. (The 'C39' in his address comes from his entry in the Post Office telephone directories over many years. But his probate record omits the 'C' which we think must be a PO typo.)