Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

24/01/1916

Date of Discharge

17/11/1919

Place of Enlistment

Goulburn NSW

Gender

Male

Other Name(s)

Known as 'Arthur'

Place of Birth

Weetangera ACT (Weetangerra)

Address (at enlistment)

Weetangera ACT (also spelt 'Weetangerra')

School(s) Attended

Weetangera School (Weetangerra)

Occupation

Farmer

Next of Kin

Thomas K. Clark (father), Weetangera via Hall ACT

Service Number

1887

Final Rank

Sergeant

Final Unit

55 Battalion AIF

Hall Memorial Grove, Victoria Street, Hall ACT
Weetangerra Honor Roll, St. John's Schoolhouse Museum, Reid

Distinguished Conduct Medal "for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during an attack on the Hindenburg Line north of Bellicourt (in France) on 30th September 1918".

Arthur Clark was the son of the teacher at Weetangera where his family also ran the Post Office. He was a farmer and may have enlisted as part of the Men from Snowy River route march in January 1916. He served with the 55th Battalion on the Western Front from June 1916 onwards and was promoted to Sergeant in June 1918. His unit fought at Gueudecourt, Doignies, Bullecourt, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Villers-Bretonneux, Morlancourt, Peronne and Bellicourt. Bert Bishop refers to him as George, describing him as 'one of the most popular sergeants the battalion had', who temporarily commanded the battalion in the wake of Peronne and C Company at Bellicourt. In 1919 he attended a shearing course at the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Co. in Birmingham before returning home and being discharged in Sydney on 17 November 1919. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions on 30th September 1918 during the battle at Bellicourt on the Hindenburg Line. After the officers of his company (C Company) had either been killed or wounded Clark took charge, successfully attacking enemy machine gun nests holding up flanking troops. He also rescued several men, including Ernie Corey (who earned the Military Medal on four occasions), while under fire.

When the Armistice was declared a student at Weetangera recalled that the teacher "Mrs. Clark came out of her house, crying with joy that her son, Arthur, would be returning home safely". She then gave the students the rest of the day off school. Arthur Clark returned to Australia in October 1919 where he was welcomed home at Hall. In the 1920s he married Muriel Bretherton, sister of Arnold Bretherton (an RMC cadet killed in the war in 1916) in Kavieng, a town in New Ireland which is now part of Papua and New Guinea. They had returned to Australia by 1927 as Clark appears on electoral rolls as a resident of Kogarah in Sydney. Their first child was born in Sydney in 1929 and a second in 1931. According to White, Clark ran a tobaccanists shop in Sydney during the 1950s. He was living in Brisbane, Queensland in the 1960s and his last known address was in the inner suburb of New Farm. Arthur Clark died on 28 August 1971 at the Kenmore Repatriation Hospital near Brisbane and was cremated at the Albany Creek Crematorium five days later.

Description - height 5 feet 7½ inches, weight 150 pounds, chest 33-36½ inches, fair complexion, blue eyes, light brown hair, Catholic.

Margaret Clough, 'Spilt Milk: A history of the Weetangera School 1875-2004', 2004
Timothy J. Cook, 'Snowy to the Somme - A Muddy and Bloody Campaign, 1916-1918', 2014 (pp.p.290, 291, 299)
Bert Bishop, 'The hell, the humour and the heartbreak: A Private's view of World War 1', 1991
Elizabeth White, 'A Shumack family c.1668-1992 & connected families', 1993 (p.335)
Queanbeyan Age - 10 July 1912, 1 February 1916, 2 May 1916, 16 December 1919
Courier Mail - 2 September 1971
Sydney Morning Herald - 29 March 1929, 13 December 1972, 22 January 1974
Table Talk - 11 March 1926
Our Queanbeyan 'Boys' No.3, Howard & Shearsby, Yass (postcard)
AWM Honours & Awards
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'The Stretcher Bearer', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
Information provided by Beryl Pittman
Queensland Births, Deaths & Marriages - https://www.qld.gov.au/law/births-deaths-marriages-and-divorces/family-history-research/