Stanstead Abbotts

Local History Society

Frederick CLARKE

Private 105809

Hertfordshire Yeomanry

Died of Illness 28th November 1918 aged 24

Born in 1894, in Wadesmill, brother to Alfred, and in 1901 lived with the family in the High Street. By 1911 they had moved to Sheffield House in the High Street and Frederick worked as an ironmonger’s assistant, presumably for his father.

He joined the Hertfordshire Yeomanry in June 1915 and his unit was sent to Gallipoli in August 1915.  At the end of the campaign there the battalion was split up when it became part of the Indian Expeditionary Force in the Middle East, and he went with them to what are now Iraq and Syria, where he survived the remainder of the war.  Unfortunately he contacted malaria and dysentery and died, almost three weeks after the war ended in Europe.

He is buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Damascus, and commemorated on the Hertfordshire Yeomanry Plaque in St. Albans.

According to a record at the CWGC the six Clarke brothers all served during the war and four did not return but we can only find the records for Alfred and Frederick.

Medals Awarded: British War Medal, Victory Medal, 1915 Star

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