LIEUTENANT AMOS CLARKSON MC, 8th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (2nd LEEDS RIFLES). DIED OF WOUNDS, 24th OCTOBER 1918, AGED 23.

LIEUTENANT AMOS CLARKSON MC, 8^th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (2^nd LEEDS RIFLES). DIED OF WOUNDS, 24^th OCTOBER 1918, AGED 23.

Amos Clarkson was the last of the Ilkley ‘Pals’ Company to die during the war. On 31^st August, along with 127 men from the town, he had enlisted into the 9^th West Riding Regiment and now over four years later and as the Great War approached its conclusion he succumbed to wounds received during one of the final attacks. The ‘Pals’ had left Ilkley with much fanfare in early September 1914, had fought for over 3 years and now 30 of them lay dead in the fields of France and Belgium.

Born in Silsden on the 18^th April 1895, Amos, was one of four children of John Clarkson, a coal agent and his wife Hannah. It was the death of his father in 1908 that brought the family to Ilkley, when Hannah bought the Midland Hotel on Station Road which she ran with her sister Elizabeth. Young Amos won a place at Ilkley Grammar School and appears to have been popular with his peers. Leaving school at the age of 15 he went on to an apprenticeship with F. Willey & Co at their premises at Piccadilly in Bradford. He seems to have had a particular interest in cars, although, he did not have a licence a fact that came to light in June 1914 when he was fined 15s by the Otley Magistrates for exceeding the 10mph speed limit in Burley in Wharfedale.

In early September 1914 Amos along with the rest of the Ilkley ‘Pals’ moved south to Dorset to begin their training. In July the following year the 9^th West Ridings arrived on the Western Front where they would remain for the rest of the war. It is clear that Amos was well regarded by his superiors and was quickly promoted to the rank of Quartermaster Sergeant. The following year in March 1916 his was recommended for officer training and returned to Britain.

Upon his promotion to 2^nd Lieutenant Amos returned to France, not to the ‘Pals’ but to a battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment and then attached to the 69^th Trench Mortar Battery as Acting-Captain and commanding officer. It was whilst serving with this latter unit that he was awarded the Military Cross for outstanding leadership during the Battle of Messines in June 1917. In September Amos was badly wounded in the thigh seriously enough for him to be evacuated back home.

In the autumn of 1918 Amos returned to France and on the 16^th of October was attached to the 8^th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment who were preparing for an attack near to the village of Solesmes in the Cambrai Sector. It was probably on the 19^th that Amos led a  patrol out into No Man’s Land to gather information about enemy positions when his unit was hit by enemy shelling. Wounded in the back and thigh by shrapnel he was dragged back to the British lines and examined by the battalion medical officer. The seriousness of his wounds meant an immediate evacuation to the 29^th Casualty Clearing Station where, sadly, he died on the 24^th of October.

The commander of the battalion Lieutenant Colonel England wrote to his grieving family “...I quickly found out what a capable officer he was. He was very gallant, thoroughly reliable and very popular with his men.”

Today Lieutenant Amos Clarkson lies in the British Military Cemetery at Delseaux Farm and is remembered with pride on our war memorial in Ilkley.

Photograph above courtesy of James Cooper shows Amos on the right and his friend and fellow ‘Ilkley Pal’, Ronald Hartley, taken when both were privates in the West Riding Regiment. Ronald whose bravery won the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal survived the war.