SOLDIER OF THE MONTH

Brigadier Arthur Christopher Lancelot Stanley-Clarke C.B.E. D.S.O.

Arthur Christopher Lancelot Clarke was born on 30th June 1886 in Brighton, Sussex. He was schooled at WinchesterCollege, where he excelled as a fine cricketer and soccer player. His sporting achievements continued when he went to Oxford, where after a short time he obtained his soccer blue.   In March 1909 he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant with the 2nd Battalion The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) and promoted to Lieutenant in June 1910 with which rank he went to Malta with the Battalion in November 1911.

The 2nd Battalion remained in Malta until September 1914, when they returned to the UK to make preparations to join the BEF.  The 2nd Bn arrived in France on November 5th, 1914, where they were to spend the next four years fighting on the Western Front.

Following a promotion in December 1914, Captain Stanley-Clarke, as he was now known, was wounded while in the trenches near Chapigny, on 1st of March, 1915, and invalided home. It was a narrow escape; only nine days later the 2nd Battalion were to suffer horrendous casualties during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

On 31st March, 1916, Captain Stanley-Clarke joined the 9th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) as Second-in-Command. In March 1916 he was appointed to the rank of temporary major, and in November of that year he was posted to the 10th Battalion as Commanding Officer. In fitting with his new position, Major Stanley-Clarke was authorised to wear the rank insignia of a Lieutenant-Colonel, and was officially gazetted to that temporary rank in December 1916.

As a battalion commander Stanley-Clarke was loved and respected by his men. The following tribute to Brigadier Stanley-Clarke from the history of the ‘Tenth Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)’ well describes his popularity with both officers and men alike:

“There was no man, who had had the privilege of serving under him who had not felt his influence as a soldier, a sportsman, and as a gentleman. For more than two years of strenuous active service, his was the outstanding personality that dominated and impressed itself on the Battalion. Officers and men looked up to him in something of the same spirit in which small boys look up to the Captain of their school, for there was nothing that they could do which he could not do better."

Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley-Clarke left the 10th Battalion on September 27th, 1918, to take up his appointment as Commandant of VIII Corps School. His  service with the Cameronians during the Great War earned him the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the French Legion d’Honneur, and the French Croix-de-Guerre with Palms, in addition to him being mentioned in despatches on four separate occasions.

When the War ended, Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley-Clarke reverted back to his substantive rank of Captain, and as a company commander in the newly reformed 1st Battalion, found himself stationed in the Curragh. It was while he was stationed in Ireland with the 1st Battalion that Captain Stanley-Clarke became engaged to Miss Olive Carroll-Leahy, whom he married at a quiet service at St. Peter’s in Eaton Square, London, on June 24th, 1931.

In 1937 Colonel Stanley-Clarke was appointed Commander of the 154th (Argyll and Sutherland) Infantry Brigade, and by the end of that year had been granted the temporary rank of Brigadier. It was as Commander of the 154th Brigade of the 51st Highland Division that Brigadier Stanley-Clarke once again found himself in France as a member of the British Expeditionary Force. During the operations of May and June 1940 it was his Brigade which escaped capture unlike the rest of the Division. Back in Scotland once again, Brigadier Stanley-Clarke was given command of the Lowland and Border District.

On 3rd June 1944, Stanley-Clarke finally retired from the Army after an almost continual service of some 35 years. For his services during the Second World War he had been made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) in October of 1940, and was awarded the Polish Order of the Polonia Restituta, 3rd Class in December of 1943.

Moving to Ireland in 1949 Brigadier Stanley-Clarke became heavily involved in hospital work as a Treasurer of a children’s hospital, and was for many years on the Board, and later to be Chairman, of Mercer’s Hospital in Dublin. He held important positions in the administration of his Church, was an expert gardener, and contributed greatly to animal welfare in Ireland.

Brigadier Stanley-Clarke, C.B.E., D.S.O., died on 8th January, 1983, in his 97th year. The following quote from his obituary in The Covenanter sums up the man in few words:

“A man of great charm who never let a friend down and who was loved and respected by all who knew him.”

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