William Henry Slaughter was born in Peckham, London, in 1894. In Adelaide by 1912, he was noted playing for South Adelaide reserves in 1913 and 1914. He was living at Parkside with his family, close to the soccer grounds in the South Parklands. Team mates in the South reserves team included future Soccer Anzacs William Marsh, Len Limb, Harold Tucker and Bert Witton.
Slaughter’s father was a decorator, and William Slaughter himself was working as a painter when he enlisted in the AIF on 19 May 1915. He went to Gallipoli with reinforcements to the 27th Battalion late in the campaign, and was promoted to corporal shortly before the evacuation. In France he was wounded at Pozieres in August 1916 and returned to England where he married Elizabeth Maria Dean at Branksome, Dorset, on 2 June. Back at the front, Slaughter was wounded again at Broodseinde Ridge in October 1917.
He and his wife returned to Adelaide in January 1919. William Slaughter returned to his civilian job as a painter, and was working in Barmera in 1924 when soccer was revived in the Riverland. The game had briefly flourished at Renmark in the mid-1890s, but had soon died out. In 1924 Barmera played several games against Berri, and Slaughter appeared in every team list for Barmera. In 1925 an Upper Murray League, including several clubs from the Renmark area, was established – but he had probably returned to Adelaide by then.
Slaughter’s son, also called William Henry, served in an Army motor transport unit in World War II. William Henry snr died at the Somerton Park nursing home in 1979.