Name
Claud Lovat Fraser
15 May 1890
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/06/1921
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Durham Light Infantry
14th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LAYSTON CHURCHYARD EXTENSION
156.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Buntingford memorials, Not on the Layston memorials
Pre War
Claud Lovat Fraser was born on 15 May 1890 in London, the son of Claud and Florence Fraser (his birth was registered with the name Lovat Claud) and he was baptised on 20 July 1890 at St Jude's Church, South Kensington, London. His mother was an amateur artist and his father a city solicitor.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at 1K The Mansions, Kensington, London with three servants. By 1901 Lovat and his younger brother Allen, aged 10 and 7, were residing in a boarding house In Weston Super Mare with a Nurse (Domestic) Annie Dallen, along with four other residents. He and his brother were educated at Windlesham House Boarding School, Pulborough, East Sussex, followed by Charterhouse, Surrey leaving school in 1907.
He trained as a legal clerk in his father's law firm but in 1911 left his father's firm to pursue a career in art, studying at Westminster School of Art before setting up his own studio. He produced illustrations for several poetry broadsides or pamphlets, priced to bring poetry to the general public, as well as caricatures of contemporary literary and theatrical figures. He was later to produce sketches and drawings of the trenches and battlefields of Flanders.
Wartime Service
In the autumn of 1914 he enlisted with the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps and was commissioned to the 14th battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, serving with them in France from 11 September 1915. He survived the Battle of Loos (25 Sept - 8 Oct 1915) but was gassed in December 1915 when he didn't get his mask on quick enough when leaving the bunker. He was repatriated to England on sick leave and was promoted to Captain in January 1916 but was soon back on sick leave suffering from shellshock, and the effects of gas, after a battle at Ypres Salient. He was then found to be unfit for regular service but served as a clerk from August 1916, working on visual propaganda from October 1916 to late April 1917, and at the Army Record Office in Hounslow until discharge in March 1919.
He married the American-born actress Grace Inez Crawford on 6 February 1917 at the Church of St Mary the Boltons, West Brompton, London. Claud was then described as 2nd Lt attached to War Office Staff, living at 12 Cresswell Gardens, London. Their daughter Catherine Adeline Lovat Fraser was born in 1919.
Following his discharge, he produced illustrations for several books, private commissions for bookplates, stationery and greetings cards and commercial advertisements and designed stage sets and costumes for stage plays and ballets.
He and his family were holidaying in Dymchurch, Kent in 1921 when Fraser became ill and died on 18 June at the Bevan Hospsital Nursing Home, Sandgate, Kent. He is buried in St Bartholomew's Churchyard Extension, Layston nr Buntingford.
Additional Information
His widow obtained probate of his estate in London on 24 December, with effects of £761 1s.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.capitalcollections.org.uk
