Claude TOWNSEND

231635, Gunner. b. 1882, Clayton d. Thu. 25th April 1918 (aged 25).

Another Clayton Gunner, Claude had joined up and left his home at 14 Pasture Side Terrace West in Clayton behind him to go and man the guns on the Western Front. He was the son of Henry and Emma Townsend and elder brother to Leslie. Claude was the only member of his family to serve in the conflict.

After several months away fighting, he was killed in action during the fierce fighting in the German spring offensive.

At this point he was part of the 84th Battery of the 11th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, a unit that had been hastily dispatched at the start of the war from its normal home as a garrison far away in India. Claude was one of the steady flow of replacements which had swelled its ranks over the four years in France.

Because of the location of his grave in the cemetery it is clear that he was not buried there originally, but most likely on the battlefield where he fell. The remains from these smaller cemeteries were later re-interred there by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Claude is buried at Klein-Vierstraat British Cemetery to the south of Ypres. The CWGC Burial Return record shows that Claude was exhumed from a ‘small French cemetery’ map reference Sheet 28 G32a.8.2 and re-interred at Klein-Vierstraat British Cemetery .

A short and poignant phrase at the bottom of Claude’s headstone reads “Passing sweet are the domains of tender memory.”

Claudes younger brother Leslie went on to marry Ida and had a son Gordon; the husband and father of a well known and respected Clayton family.