Clayton, John Alfred
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Clayton, John Alfred The CWGC entry for John Clayton reads: Name: CLAYTON, JOHN ALFRED Initials: J A Nationality: United Kingdom Rank: Second Lieutenant Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Age: 26 Date of Death: 21/04/1918 Additional information: Son of Lucilla Clayton, of Prospect House, Horsehay, Salop, and the late John Clayton. Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead Grave/Memorial North of Church. Reference: Cemetery: DAWLEY MAGNA (HOLY TRINITY) CHURCHYARD John joined the Army Service Corps in August 1914. His medal record suggests that he did not go abroad but we understand that he served for two years in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. It is not clear why or how he came to join the Royal Flying Corps, the pre-cursor of the Royal Force but this he did in August 1917. He would then have been sent for training and was in Beverley in the early part of 1918 attached to the 72 nd Training Squadron. This is John Clayton pictured outside his home, Prospect House in Horsehay, when he was a corporal in the Army Service Corps before he joined the RFC. In the ASC he rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant as indicated on his medal record. (Picture courtesy of David Shaw) In August 1917 he had transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the December of that year. In the photograph, John Alfred Clayton is standing back left with the rest of his family outside Prospect House in Horsehay. John at the time of the picture was a Corporal in the ASC. It was the last time the family was pictured all together because one of his sisters, Lucilla, in the photo died not long afterwards, yet another victim of Spanish Flue, and shortly before John’s accident. In 1903 the family bought Prospect House, 12 Station Road, Horsehay, Telford at auction where the photograph above was taken. The family didn’t move in until January 1904 after alterations had been finished. Members of the same family still live at this address and offer bed and breakfast services to visitors. In the 1911 census, John’s father worked as a brewer’s agent and he himself was a jeweller’s clerk. John had been apprenticed to his uncle, James Clayton, as a trainee jeweller. Five of John and Lucilla’s eight children were still living at home. In the 1901 census, John’s father described himself as a commercial traveller although he had his finger in many pies. He was born about 1854 in Wednesbury in the Black Country, the son of Edwin Clayton and Sarah Guy. His wife, Lucilla, came from Dawley and was also born in about 1854. John was blessed with five sisters and two brothers. All but one of the sisters was older than he, and three of them worked as school teachers. All the children were born in Dawley other than the eldest two, Harry and Maggie. The family lived on Terrace Lodge, King St. in Dawley having recently left the Dun Cow Inn, New St, Dawley. John, Lucilla, 6 children and a widowed aunt, Julia Price, had moved to the Dun Cow pub in the 1880’s and it was here that John Alfred was born and also lastly his sister Mary. They also hired a niece (Lauretta Clayton) to live in and help with housework, babies, elderly Aunt etc. The Dun Cow had the best crown green for bowls for miles around and the boys and their cousins earned pocket money by collecting up the bowls. The Dun Cow was demolished in March 2009 as we did our research. In 1881, John Clayton took over the running of the Queen’s Arms in Dawley from his father in law, Thomas Bray. Trained as a butcher, John was involved in several businesses. While an innkeeper he was also a brewer’s representative and bred pigs for his brother’s butcher shop. The Clayton family had moved to the Queen’s Arms shortly before the 1881 census as their eldest daughter’s place of birth in about 1880-1 is shown as Wolverhampton in the 1881 census. In late 1877 John Clayton had married Lucilla Bray in Holy Trinity Church, Dawley. Her brother Samuel was organist at the church and her father a church warden. John’s brothers Edwin and William were active members of the same congregation. Lucilla’s father was in 1861 and 1871 the innkeeper of the Queens Arms on Finger Road which seems to have been next door or near to the Peters Finger Inn. Lucilla was born here. The Queens Arms was in operation until recently but is now boarded up and is for sale. When the Claytons left the Queens Arms to move to the Dun Cow, it was then run by a family called Ketley who had also run the Peter Finger Inn. Martha Ketley was the daughter of Thomas Bray’s second wife and therefore Lucilla’s step sister so the pub stayed in the (extended) family. In the 1871 census, John Clayton is to be found “assisting in the business” in his widowed mother’s grocery and pork butchers on the High St in Great Dawley although the main contributers were his older brother Edwin and William. John’s parents, Edwin and Sarah, were part of the great Australian gold rush but came back, presumably with their gains. John Clayton’s accident On April 21st 1918 whilst on a training flight, John was in a plane with Lieut. H E Robinson an expert instructor and was travelling at a height of 2000 ft when it collided with a plane flown by Lieut. E I Howell, both planes crashing to the ground killing all three officers instantly. The officer commanding said that he saw the machines falling and at once flew across to them. He found the machines on the ground absolutely wrecked, and the three men were dead in the wreckage. Another officer said that he saw the machines collide in the air at a height rather under 2000 feet, but he did not see what they were doing immediately before the collision. An eye witness, a farm hand, said that he saw the planes meet and the wings dropped off and crashed into a field followed almost immediately by both planes. A verdict of ‘Accidental death’ was returned on all three officers by a jury. A memorial service to the three officers was held in Beverley on the Tuesday with a regimental band playing both the ‘Death March’ and sounding the ‘Last Post’ at the service. The funeral of 2nd Lieut. Clayton took place in Dawley Churchyard on the following Wednesday evening, in “the presence of a numerous concourse of inhabitants of the local community, John being well known and highly esteemed in the locality”. John’s gravestone would have been installed by the CWGC. John’s death was included in the Roll of Honour in the Flight magazine of 23 rd May 1918. .