Clifton, PJ

Major Percy James Clifton

Percy was born on November 15th 1888, the son of solicitor William Clifton – who was also a Governor of the Dulwich Estate – and his wife Sarah. He followed in the footsteps of his elder brother Ernest by attending first the Prep and then the College. After leaving Dulwich he began working in his father’s firm, and in 1910 became a fully qualified solicitor in his own right. During this period he was also a reservist in the Royal Field Artillery, having first taken a commission in the 6th London Brigade in 1909; in 1913 he was promoted to the rank of Captain.
As a reservist he was called up upon the outbreak of the war, and spent its first few months at Hemel Hempstead, engaged in the training of new recruits. Percy and his battalion were to go to France for the first time in March 1915. Shortly before transferring across he had been made an acting Major, a position he was to hold until being confirmed in the role full time the next year. Whilst at the front he served in many of the major engagements of the war, seeing action at, among others, Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Cambrai, being mentioned in dispatches twice and, in early 1917, earning the D.S.O. A wound sustained in August of that year meant that he had to return to England to recuperate for several months, but by early 1918 he was once more back on the front line. On August 26th 1918 he was resting in his officers’ mess near Amiens when it was struck by German shell fire, severely wounding the four officers inside; Percy passed away that evening in a Casualty Clearing Station near Daours.