Hilda Emma Clarke was born on 10 April 1904 and baptised in Weybridge, Surrey. Her father William Henry was a coachman and he and his wife Martha, nee Swinton, lived at Roslyn Lodge there. Hilda was one of five children, having a brother and three sisters. It may have been owing to her father's occupation - was he required to travel far, perhaps?- or to the birth of more siblings that Hilda was staying with two of her mother's sisters at the time of the 1911 census. The Swinton family farmed in Linby, Nottinghamshire.
In the 1939 register she was living at the Bull at Weston under Wetherley with her widowed mother Martha who was the licensed victualler there. Hilda was a paid worker as was her sister Mildred so it seems that they all ran the public house jointly. Martha died in 1948.
Hilda died on 2 March 1975, when she was living at 9, The Almshouses in Stoneleigh.