Name
Frederick Nathaniel Clark
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
27/09/1915
25
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
80
Royal Fusiliers *1
3rd (City of London) Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LOOS MEMORIAL
Panel 25 to 27
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Croxley Green Village Memorial, Croxley Green, All Saints' Church Shrine, Croxley Green, Not on the Watford memorials
Pre War
His parents, Nathaniel and Jane Elizabeth (nee Payne) Clark of Rose Lea, Croxley Green.
His parents married 10 December 1883 at St Matthew’s, Oxhey, Herts. Jane died 1944 in Watford aged 84, and was buried 3 April in Vicarage Road Cemetery, Watford; Nathaniel died 1949 in Wealdstone, Middx, aged 90, and was buried 1 December, also in Vicarage Road Cemetery.
Frederick was born 14 or 22 August 1889 in Great Bowden, Leics [not Bodmin, Cornwall], and baptised 5 February 1890 at Little Bowden, Leics. He attended Beechen Grove Board School, Watford, from 14 September to 18 November 1896; then Callowland Board School, Watford, from 18 November 1896 to 23 March 1899, from 13 November 1899 to 14 November 1900, and finally from 27 to 30 November 1900.
On the 1891 Census, aged 1 he lived in Chalfont St Giles, Bucks, with his parents and three siblings. On the 1901 Census, aged 11 he lived in Watford, with his parents and six siblings. On the 1911 Census, he was a labourer in an iron foundry aged 20 and lived in Watford at 57 Pretoria Road, with his father, who was an unemployed coachman, and four siblings. However, by August 1914 the family was living in Croxley Green at Rose Lea House. They later moved to 332 Whippendell Road, Watford. Frederick’s brother Herbert also died in the war.
Recorded born in Bodmin, and living in Watford when enlisting in London.
Wartime Service
Frederick Nathaniel Clark was attested 12 August 1914 in London for the duration of the War, and joined the Royal Fusiliers: a groom aged 23, 5’4″ tall; his next-of-kin his father of Croxley Green, Herts. He was promoted to Corporal 1 September 1914 and Sergeant 9 September 1914.
He Joined the British Expeditionary Force on 1 June 1915 and was entitled to the 1914-15 Star medal, his qualifying date being 2 June 1915. He was killed in action, aged 25. His battalion was part of the British Indian Army that moved from Lucknow in India to join the BEF in December 1914 (85th Brigade, 28th Division). They fought in the second battle of Ypres and the battle of Loos, where Frederick was killed.
Additional Information
There is a Death announcement for Frederick in the West Herts and Watford Observer dated 30 October 1915; and an In Memoriam in the issue dated 30 September 1916.
Acknowledgments
Brian Thomson Croxley Green in the First World War, Rickmansworth Historical Society 2014
