Name
Henry Beaumont Clark (poss Clarke)
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
31/07/1917
20
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
265970
Hertfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 54 and 56.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
St Mary's Church Memorial, Standon, Puckeridge Village Memorial, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
When the 1901 Census was taken, the family had been split up, Henry and his widower father were living with Henry’s aunt (his mother’s sister) Emma Thompson and her family in Bromley by Bow while Henry’s two brothers were living with their Cole grandparents in Hackney,
On the 1911 census, brother Ernest James is found with father and brother William Roger living in the same street in Custom House, but Henry is not with them, but at 15 years old, is found working as a servant/houseboy in Marylebone, a domestic servant as his mother had been before marriage.
Although his family were not local, he did give the Windmill Inn in Standon as his place of residence when he enlisted at Hertford in September 1914.
Wartime Service
Henry was a Lance Corporal, No. 265970 with the Hertfordshire Regiment, 1st Battalion.
The sequence of events from 1914 is given in his service records:
His attestation form gives his original service number as 3342, which changed to 265970 in 1917 when the whole regiment was renumbered. His commencement or embodiment date as Private is given as 30th September 1914, and he embarked at Southampton on 18th April 1915 to join his Battalion in the field on 25th April 1915.
The next notable date is 20th November 1916 when he is confirmed in his promotion to Lance Corporal, so he must have proved himself a capable soldier.
He seems to have suffered some sort of minor facial injury, as on 28th April 1917 he was in the hands of the 133rd Field Ambulance, re-joining his unit on 5th May 1917.
This was followed by a short leave, possibly to England from 20th June, returning to the front on 2nd July 1917, less than a month before he is posted as missing, on 31st July 1917.
This date is a very significant one in the history of the Hertfordshire Regiment as its men took part in the opening battle of the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).
“The regiment did not fare well on that day. After a successful morning in which the 39th Division easily achieved its two main objectives, it fell on the 118th Brigade and the Herts to take the third and final target of the day: the German ‘Langemarck Line’. The resulting engagement was the single most costly day for the Herts in the entire Great War. Of the 620 or so men who attacked that morning outside the small village of St Julien, all 20 officers and 459 other ranks were killed, wounded or captured, most within a two hour period”.
The service record contains correspondence regarding Henry’s personal effects, medals and money due, with his father writing to the army to ask about these items. What Henry’s father appeared not to know was that Henry had named his aunt, and perhaps ‘second mother’, Mrs Emma Thompson, at the Windmill Inn, as the person to receive everything. That might explain why he was lodging with her at the Windmill Inn. It appears that she was a sister of his mother Anna (nee Cole); his mother had died at the age of 32 in 1898.
There are some personal letters: two from his younger brother William Roger Clarke, dated 23rd March 1914 and the other 8th February 1915. Another from his father, dated 13th August 1915urges him to "cheer up, my dear Boy, and remember that the blackest cloud has a bright silver lining, so trusting that God will protect you and bring you home safe again…" - sadly that was not to be.
Additional Information
Additional information from Jennie Boileau (Great Niece).
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild
Jonty Wild, Jennie Boileau, Di Vanderson
