Name
Thomas Robert Clark
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/09/1916
22
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
150850
1st Canadian Mounted Rifles Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
SERRE ROAD CEMETERY No.1
VII. D. 16.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Abbots Langley Village Memorial, St. Lawrence Church Memorial, Abbots Langley
Biography
Thomas Clark was born in Abbots Langley in 1894, the eldest son of George and Emma Clark. In the 1901 Census he lived with his parents and his brother and three sisters at 64 Breakspeare Road. George Clark was a Pork Butcher and Shop-keeper. By the time of the 1911 Census he had moved in with Harry Ellis and his wife Emma at another property in Breakespeare Road, and was recorded as Emma’s brother in law. At that time he was working as a Butcher’s Lad, presumably employed by his father.
Sometime after 1911 he moved to Canada, as did a number of young men from the village. He returned with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifle Battalion (Saskatchewan Regiment). The battalion was raised on 15th March 1915 and left Montreal on 12th June 1915 aboard the RMS “Megantic”, and arrived in England on 21st June 1915. After a short period in England, where it was possible that Thomas visited his family in Abbots Langley, the Rifles left to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the Western Front on 22nd September 1915. At this point the battalion was a mounted unit, but as the fighting on the Western Front settled down into the stalemate of trench warfare the Rifles converted into an infantry unit from 1st January 1916. It is not known exactly when Thomas joined the Rifles, or if he was present when the battalion was attacked by the enemy at Mount Sorrel, near Ypres on 2nd June 1916. The Canadians were over-run and lost 557 of 692 men, killed, wounded or missing. The 1st CMR was re-built over the summer, in time for the Battle of the Somme, which started on 1st July 1916.
On 15th September 1916 the 1st CMR was in the first wave of Canadian troops sent to attack Mouquet Farm, an impregnable German defensive strong-point on the Somme front. It was in this action that Thomas Clark was killed in action. The 1st CMR made two unsuccessful raids on the Farm, and in so doing lost 260 officers and men killed, wounded or missing.
Thomas Clark was one of two Abbots Langley men who were killed in action on 15th September 1916. The other one was Walter Owen.
Thomas was listed in the Abbots Langley Parish Magazine Roll of Honour in August, September and October 1916, where his name appeared, but no details were given for his unit or rank. However in the November 1916 edition of the Magazine he was listed serving as a Private with the 1st Canadian Rifles, and was reported being killed in action.
“Thomas Clark went out to Canada some few years back and he was doing very well and happily there, but at the call of the War he came back and was killed in action on September 15th”
Thomas Clark was buried at Serre Road Cemetery No 1 on the Somme and was also commemorated on the Abbots Langley War Memorial.
Acknowledgments
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org
