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Name: SLADE, Humphrey KBE

Birth Date: 4 May 1905 Kensington, London

Death Date: 10 August 1983 Nairobi

First Date: 1930

Last Date: 1983

Profession: Lawyer with Hamilton, Harrison & Mathews. Retired in 1946 owing to ill health and farmed on N. Kinangop. Elected member of Legislative Council for Aberdares 1952. At Independence unanimously elected Speaker of the first Parliament

Area: Nairobi, N. Kinangop

Married: In Nairobi 19 Oct 1935 Constance Laing 'Menina' Gordon b. 1917 Oporto, d. 1977 (dau of Henry Laing Gordon)

Children: Nigel Asterly (7 Sep 1938 Brenchley, Kent-1990); Olwen (1940); Laurie Eric (1944); Kathleen (1960)

Author: The Parliament of Kenya, 1969

Book Reference: EAWL, Sitrep 2, Who's Who, Hut, O&C

War Service: Kenya Regt. then Dep. Judge Advocate General EA

School: King's Scholar Eton; Magdalen College Oxford 1924-27.

General Information:

Kenyan lawyer and politician who served as a member of the Legislative Council and later the National Assembly between 1952 and 1970. He was the inaugural Speaker of the National Assembly, from 1967 to 1970.

He called his time spent as Speaker of the Kenya Parliament " his 10 happiest years". Retired in 1970 and became a legal consultant with Hamilton, Harrison and Mathews. He was awarded EBS [Kenya Honour]. Source: Mrs C.L. Slade

Pre-war volunteer to the Kenya Regiment (KR 656)

Wikipedia Slade was born in Kensington, London to George Slade, a solicitor, and his wife Edith Beale. He was a King's Scholar at Eton College and later read jurisprudence at Magdalen College, Oxford. He completed his articles with Gibson and Weldon and qualified as a solicitor in 1930. He migrated to Kenya in October 1930 and practised as a lawyer with Hamilton Harrison and Mathews in Nairobi. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he was made Deputy Judge Advocate of the East African Forces, remaining in the position until 1941. In 1945, whilst still in Kenya, he came of the roll of solicitors in England and Wales in order to gain a call to the bar at Lincoln's Inn.

In 1952, he was elected to the Legislative Council from the Aberdares constituency. He served as speaker of the Legislative Council from 1960 until Kenyan independence in 1963. He then served as speaker of the newly established House of Representatives between 1963 and 1967, and that latter year he was unanimously elected as the inaugural Speaker of the National Assembly of Kenya. He retired from public life in 1970 and died in Nairobi in 1983.

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