Horace Victor Verdon Clarke, known to his family as Victor, was born on Thursday, 22nd September 1892 at Marylebone in London. He was baptised along with his brother Frank at St Mary’s Church Lambeth on Sunday, 23rd August 1896. Victor was the youngest child born to John Clarke and Mary Ann Verdon. He had six siblings; Edith Sarah Caroline, William Daniel, Laura Elizabeth Louise, Gertrude, Alice Ellen and Frank John.

Victor’s brother Frank also fought and died in the Great War. He was a Sapper with the 119th Coy. Labour Corps, Royal Engineers and he died almost a year after the war ended on  Wednesday, 29th October 1919. He is Remembered with Honour at Tincourt New British Cemetery, Somme, France in Grave IX.C.5. The inscription on his headstone reads “THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”. It is not known how Frank died.

When Victor was born, the family lived at 42 Catherine Street, Covent Garden, where the Strand Theatre subsequently stood (now the Novello Theatre). His father worked as a ‘Shopman’ in a newspaper office and his three oldest siblings were employed in the drapery and millinery trade.

By 1901 the family had moved to 51 Newport Street in Lambeth a stone’s throw from the River Thames and a short walk from the Oval cricket ground. Victor’s father John was working as a window cleaner on his own account by this time. Victor was very much the baby of the family and there was a seven-year age gap between him and his immediate sibling Frank and twenty-three years between him and his eldest sister Edith.

By 1911 John, still plying his trade as a window cleaner, had moved his family back to Covent Garden where it now resided at 15 York Street (now Tavistock Street) directly opposite the house where Thomas de Quincy, the English essayist, wrote his most famous work, “Confessions of an Opium Eater” the autobiographical account of his laudanum addiction. Victor now aged eighteen was working as a Compositor’s Apprentice. At that time his apprenticeship would have been for seven years from the age of fourteen and as a ‘print trade’ would have been much sought after and lead to secure employment. Victor could ultimately earn about 40 shillings a week as a Compositor equivalent to £161 today and a higher than the average wage in 1914. It was the amount a Lieutenant in the Army earned. The downside of Victor’s apprenticeship was that his articles forbade him to marry until his time was served.

On the outbreak of war Victor enlisted with the Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire) Regiment, attesting in Marylebone in September 1914. He was twenty-two and living with his parents at 5 Grosvenor Terrace, Boxmoor where they had moved there sometime after 1911.

He was initially sent to Weymouth to train with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, before being sent to France to join the 1st Battalion on the 11th December 1914. The 1st Battalion had gone to France in August 1914 under the orders of 7th Brigade in the 3rd Division and Victor joined it on the 18th December as part of a draft of 110 men at Locre, six miles south west of Ypres.

Victor saw action with the 1st Battalion during the Winter Operations of 1914 and 15, the first attack at Bellewaarde and the actions around Hooge in September. By November 1915 Victor was at Ploegsteert Wood where he remained until January 1916.

Victor was assigned to a large party of men to carry out trench repair work following German shelling. The Battalion War Diary recorded the events: "PIGGERIES 12th (Jan) A large party was required for work in the evening upon the breastwork behind trench 121. There were four casualties Pte. Parsons was killed. Ptes Hall and Clark died of their wounds and Pte Hawkins was wounded. This was due to a machine gun opening fire from the enemy trench opposite trench 123"

Victor died of his wounds on Wednesday, 12th January 1916.

Victor is Remembered with Honour in Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery, Hainault, Belgium, Grave I.D.2. The inscription on his headstone requested by his mother Mary Ann reads: “BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD”.

He was 23 years old when he died. 

Victor was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the Bristish War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.