The Times/1885/Obituary/Cornelius Walford

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Obituary.

Mr. Cornelius Walford, who passed away yesterday at his residence in Belsize-park-gardens, South Hampstead, after an illness of many months' duration, was a man of many and varied attainments, and an indefatigable worker in several branches of literature and science. The eldest son of the late Mr. Cornelius Walford, of Witham, near Chelmsford, Essex, he came of a family, long connected with that county. He was brought up to the legal profession, and served his articles in the office of Messrs. Pattison, of Witham, where he was extensively engaged in the management of landed property. While still a youth he organized a local building society, which became the model and parent of other similar associations in the Eastern counties. He also acted as a local insurance agent, and his experiences in this business led to his becoming the inspector and organizer of agencies for several insurance companies in London. Somewhat late in life he was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, in Michaelmas Term, 1860, and before long he came to be largely consulted as a legal adviser and an arbitrator in some of the most intricate and delicate cases arising out of the subject of insurance. He also took an active part in the direction of the Accident Insurance Company, and of many commercial companies. His name was even better known in America than here in connexion with insurance questions; and during a business visit to America several years ago he was presented with a handsome testimonial from members of insurance societies on the other side of the Atlantic. He was the author of the "Insurance Cyclopædia," if which he has lived to complete only five volumes; and not long before his death he had projected a similar Cyclopædia of Serial and Periodical Literature. He was also the author of the "Insurance Guide and Hand-bppl," the "Insurance Year-book," of a work on "Fairs," and of a treatise in the Antiquarian Magazine. Mr. C. Walford was an active member of the Royal Historical Society, of the Topographical Society of London, of the Statistical Society, before which he read many elaborate papers, and of the "Sette of Odd Volumes." Mr. Walford was three times married, and has left a family.