GENIUS FOR FINANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENIUS FOR FINANCE

WORKING MAN'S £45,000 Until ho was 40, ZNTr. Walter Hammond, of Bolton, worked as a fitter and never earned more than 30s a week. Ho died recently at the age of 70, and his will, just published, reveals that he left a, fortune of £45.473. Behind the will lies the romance of an ordinary working man with a streak of financial genius. Mr. Hammond started work at the age of 13 in a textile machinery works and earned only a few shillings a week until lie was 21. He made investments his life's study, and was so successful that hj? was able to retire at 40 with a fortuno. " He followed his own judgment and astonished experts, whose advice he often ignored," a relative stated. " His money never made him mean and ho was neither a teetotaller nor a nonsmoker. When a boy he kept a note of all the coppers he received and how lie spent them." While he accumulated his fortune Mr. Hammond lived in a four-roomed house in a row of working-class dwellings surrounded by mills. He was a bachelor, and his money has been divided between 12 relatives, all, like himself, hard-working Bolton people. These include two sisters, one the wife of a cotton operative. The rest of the estate is to go to the widowers and families of three other sisters.