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William George Clarke (1878-1941)
William George Clarke - Research Metallurgist, WA School of Mines, Kalgoorlie
Compiled by Russell Hudson 19 August 1987. Last revised 10 July 2008.
Plaque for William George Clarke at the Boer War Memorial, Kings Park, Western Australia
Compiled by Russell Hudson October 2007. Last revised 10 July 2008.
My maternal grandfather Sergeant William George Clarke (1878-1941) served with No. 1 NZ Battalion and Rhodesian Field Artillery during the Boer War in South Africa. A plaque, in recognition of his service to the South African and Imperial Veterans Association of Western Australia, was erected in a garden plot adjacent to the Boer War Memorial in Kings Park . He served as President of the Association’s Kalgoorlie Branch during the period 1929-1941. William George Clarke was born in Vyasniki, Russia, one of nine children of Thomas Plummer Clarke, an English mechanical engineer, and his wife Frances Stelfox. Soon after their marriage in Bolton in 1865, his parents moved to Russia where his father was employed by a Bolton Company to install and maintain English-built steam engines used in Russian textile mills of the Vladimir and other industrial districts. In 1886, the family left Russia and moved to New Zealand where Thomas Plummer Clarke owned and managed a timber mill and he was later employed as engineer and battery manager on the Martha Goldmine at Waihi. Before enlisting for the Boer War, William George had trained as an assayer and, following his discharge in 1901, he and his brother Robert, a mining engineer, went to the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia in search of work. In 1905, William George was employed as metallurgist on the Burbanks Main Lode (south of Coolgardie), where he met and married Elizabeth Annie Douglas, a schoolteacher at Burbanks. Her Irish-born parents had migrated to Dunedin, New Zealand in 1877, where they married and she and her brother David were born. The family then moved to Australia, firstly to NSW. and then to WA, arriving in the late 1890’s. William George and Elizabeth Annie Clarke had four children at Burbanks - Frieda Francis (born 1907), Joyce Elizabeth (1909), Grace (1911) and Robert Douglas (1913). By about 1915, mining had declined at Burbanks and the family moved to Kalgoorlie where William George worked as a metallurgist on several of the major goldmines. In 1928, he was appointed Research Metallurgist at the WA School of Mines (Kalgoorlie), where he remained until his death in 1941. William George Clarke was a keen rifleman and, in addition to his role as President of the South African and Imperial Veterans Association of WA (Kalgoorlie Branch), he served as President of the Eastern Goldfields Rifle Club, and was an Honorary Life Member of the National Rifle Association. He also served on the Kalgoorlie Municipal Council between 1922 and 1926.
Acknowledgement: The above summary is based on a contribution by Russell Hudson to Letters to the Editor of the “Western Ancestor”, the Journal of the Western Australian Genealogical Society Inc., Vol. 10, No. 8, page 299, December 2007. The contribution was titled: "Somewhere in Perth - Boer War Memorial", and began: Dear Editor, The c1902 photograph of the Boer War Memorial in King’s Park (Western Ancestor, June 2007-Somewhere in Perth) was not recognised by your readers, so in the latest edition (September 2007) you re-published the original photograph, together with a present-day view. This latter photograph struck a chord with me, as in the left foreground is a garden bed in which stands a small brass plaque in memory of my maternal grandfather Sergeant William George Clarke (1878-1941) ......
Correction: Para 2 of the original publication incorrectly stated that William George Clarke was one ten children. This has been corrected here to read one of nine children. |
Boer War Memorial, Kings Park, Western Australia The commemorative plaque for William George Clarke is standing in the small garden plot, front left of the photograph. (Photograph Cla-kpm-101 , Russell Hudson 2007) |
Plaque in memory of William George Clarke (1878-1941) (Photograph Cla-kpm-102 ,Russell Hudson, 2007) |
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William George Clarke (Photograph Cla-fam-002) |