Ernest Clayton was born in Bexleyheath, the eldest son of Alfred and Ada Clayton. In 1901 the family were living in Danson Villa, but by 1911 they had moved to live over a hairdressing business his father owned, at 2 High Street, Welling. None of the family worked in the business but they employed a live-in servant, 27 year old Mario Tassinari, who was a hairdresser. His mother ran a drapers shop, and his father worked as a commercial traveller for the drapery business. Ernest was a baker’s assistant, his brother Sidney was a butcher’s assistant, his older sister Getrude May was 23 and not working but living at home (and would marry Mario the hairdresser servant the following year) and his younger sister Grace was still at school. One of his siblings had by then left home, but another two had sadly died.
He enlisted at Woolwich after the beginning of 1916 and his trade probably explains why he joined the Army Service Corps – he served in a military field bakery in the Middle Eastern campaign in modern day Iraq, then known as Mesopotamia, or – to the troops – simply “Mespot”. Mesopotamia was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the start of the Great War. With oil interests in the region, British troops were first despatched to the region in 1914 to prevent the Turks from interrupting the supply of oil, much of which was used by the Royal Navy. Gradually Mesopotamia, or Mespot, turned into a full-scale war with large numbers of British and Indian Army troops involved. In 1916 there was a major defeat at Kut, but gradually the war turned in Britain’s favour leading to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the region in 1918. There were trenches and battles in Mespot that saw some of the earliest forms of British desert warfare. One author called Mespot ‘The Bastard War‘ and it is clear that conditions were tough here for British troops, up against an often underestimated but formidable enemy like the Ottoman Turks.
The Army Service Corps (ASC) were involved in this conflict not just on the Western Front, but in this conflict too. At its peak, the ASC numbered over 10,547 officers and 315,334 men and tens of thousands of Indian, Egyptian, Chinese and other native labourers were also employed. Dismissively nicknamed “Ally Sloper’s cavalry” after a shifty First World War cartoon character, the ASC was responsible for transport, stores, equipment, warehousing, and food distribution; all vital roles, but one – wrongly – not widely recognized by frontline fighting units.
Ernest Clayton died at sea of an unrecorded illness on 4th August 1917. He was 24 years old. A very brief article in the Bexleyheath Observer for 24th August 1917 records:
“DIED AT SEA”
Ernest died on a hospital ship as result of illness contracted while with the Army Service Corps in Mesopotamia.
His name is remembered on the Basra Memorial which commemorates more than 40,500 members of the Commonwealth forces who died in the operations in Mesopotamia from the Autumn of 1914 to the end of August 1921 and whose graves are not known.
Commemorated
Links
This story has been researched by volunteers. We have taken every effort to ensure its accuracy. If you are related to Ernest Leith Clayton, or if you have any further information, please do get in touch.