Family :

Education & Career :

All six of the Clarke boys went to Winchester.

He entered Morshead’s from Mr. King’s preparatory school at Brighton, and played in Commoner XV, standing on Dress for VI. In 1890 he went out to Australia as agent for the British firm of Norman & Clarke, and continued in business there until 1900.

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

"The Battle of Loos (25 September to 18 October 1915) was the major battle on the Western Front in 1915, surpassing in every respect all that had gone before in terms of numbers of men and materiel committed to battle. The preliminary bombardment was the most violent to date and the battle was charaterised by the committment of Regular and Territorial battalions on a large scale, in which the Territorials performed just as well as the Regulars. As the battles on the Western Front in 1915 increased in size and violence, so the casualties increased in proportion: Neuve Chapelle 12,000, Aubers Ridge/Festubert 29,000 , Loos 60,000. 1916 was to take the casualty cost to another level. Loos was intended as a minor role in support of French efforts around Arras but circumstances reduced the French effort. It marked the first use of poison gas by the British. Once the initial assualt had failed the battle continued in a series of actions mostly focused on the northern sector around the tactically important Hohenzollern Redoubt."

Detail :

From the beginning their preparations for battle were a shambles, with some units getting lost and ending up with the wrong divisions, and the failure of supplies to get through to them, and all under heavy shelling. Indeed the Brigade commander cracked under the pressure and had to be relieved. At dawn on 27th September the Germans began their counter-attack.

Clarke was killed in action somewhere near the Hohenzollern Redoubt on September 27th, 1915. His body was never found. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial and by a plaque on the wall of the church of All Saints, Highbrook, near Ardingly. Inside the church is a memorial tablet in marble and brass: “In loving memory of John Gay Clarke, Captain 9th Battalion Royal Sussex Regt 6th son of Stephenson and Agnes Maria Clarke of Brook House in this Parish who was killed in action in France near the Hohenzollern Redoubt on the 27th September 1915, agred 43 years RIP”

Masonic :

Joined Old Wykehamist Lodge No 1458 on 19 July 1911

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley
• Website : Winchester College At War
• Researcher : Tom Hawley