Ernest AB CLARK – Charfield

29401 Private Ernest Albert Berry CLARK

1st Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry

Killed in action on 30 August 1918.

Aged 19 yrs old.

No Known Grave – commemorated on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial to the Missing Ernest Clark was born in early 1899 at Charfield. He was one of two sons and a daughter born to Ernest S T and Annie Alice Clark of Mill Road, Charfield.

Prior to enlisting in the Army, he worked as a railway employee at Berkeley Road Station.

Unfortunately, no Army Service record has survived for Pte. Clark but his Army number indicates that he probably enlisted in early 1916 and would have served in the UK until reaching the age of 19, when he could be sent abroad.

He was killed in action on 30 August 1918, when aged 19. According to a letter sent by one of his comrades to his father, death was the result of a shell falling on a trench at Monchy-le-Preux, which is near Arras, France.

He has no known grave and his name is one of over 9,000 carved on the Memorial at Vis-en-Artois, who fell in the Picardy and Artois area, between 8 August and 11 November 1918, during what is known as ‘The Advance to Victory’.

Thanks to Alexis Threlfall and Helen Date for the information and photography