Harold James Slight was born at 36. Trinity Square, London, England, on the 3rd May 1883, the son of James George William and Mary Ann Slight (née Waymark). His father was a law stationer and writer, and Harold was one of twelve children, only seven of whom were still alive in 1911.
On completing his education, he became a labourer, and then, in January 1903, he enlisted in the Kent Royal Garrison Artillery. Then in July 1903, he enlisted in the 4th Bn. East Surrey Regiment! He was transferred from the East Surrey Regiment to the Royal Garrison Artillery in September 1903, and served until May 1906, being a company cook. He was discharged as being medically unfit, but it was noted that he was of good conduct during his service.
On his discharge from the army, he became a barman and porter, and then, on the 19th May 1912, he married Mabel Ethel Herring at the Parish Church of St. James, Hatcham, Southwark, London. The couple had one child, a son named Ernest Harold, born in 1912, but he died within a short time of his birth.
He became a professional Mercantile Marine seaman and either in late 1914 or early 1915, had sailed to the United States of America on the Frisken, Miller & Company vessel the S.S. Shenandoah. For some reason, now unknown, Mr. Slight came in to financial difficulties and sought the help of the British Consulate General in New York, who arranged passage for him back to England on the May sailing of the Lusitania. He had a history of admissions to London hospitals in 1913, so it is likely that he suffered from bad health, which might have contributed greatly to his circumstances.
It is therefore likely that he would have been escorted to the Lusitania, either at the end of April or on 1st May 1915, which was then at her berth at Pier 54 in New York as a ‘Distressed British Seaman’, to be taken to Liverpool.
The liner’s May sailing was scheduled to leave New York at 10 o‘clock on the morning of 1st May, but this was delayed because she had embark cargo, passengers and crew from fellow Cunarder Cameronia, which had been requisitioned for use as a troop ship by the British Admiralty at the end of April.
Once on board, he was given a third class berth, one of his cabin mates being Cyril Grinsted.
Harold Slight was killed on the afternoon of 7th May, after the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 six days out of New York. At that stage of her voyage, she was within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only about 250 miles away from the safety of her home port. As Slight’s body was never recovered and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. Cyril Grinsted survived the sinking.
The vessel that had taken H. Slight to America, the S.S. Shenandoah was herself lost on 14th April 1916, when she struck a mine in the Straits of Dover on a voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to London, with a general cargo.
His widowed remarried on the 22nd August 1915 in the same church she had married Harold Slight. Her second husband was Private George John Beale, of the 3rd Bn. Royal Berkshire Regiment. He survived the War.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, London England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1920, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Cunard Records, UK World War 1 Pension Ledgers and Index Cards 1914 – 1923, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/278, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.