Turtle, CL
(1891 - 1916)
Key Facts
DATE OF BIRTH:
18th April 1891
YEARS ATTENDED THE COLLEGE:
1904 - 1906
HOME ADDRESS WHEN AT THE COLLEGE:
Homefield, 24 Stafford Road, Croydon
REGIMENT
16th (Queen's Westminster Rifles) Battalion, London Regiment
FINAL RANK:
Rifleman
DATE OF DEATH:
10th September 1916
AGE AT DEATH:
25
WHERE HE DIED (or was wounded)
Leuze Wood, Somme
LOCATION OF GRAVE OR MEMORIAL:
Combles Communal Cemetery Extension. VI E 1
Rifleman Clifford Louis Turtle
Clifford was born in Sheffield, on April 18th 1891, the younger of two children, of whom he was the only son, of cutler and tool-maker Louis Turtle and his wife, Kate. He came to the College in September 1904, by which point the family were resident in Croydon, and went on to be a Dulwich boy for the next two years, leaving in the summer of 1906. After having left he joined his father’s firm where he was trained in the business for a time, before ultimately taking over as manager of the company’s North End branch.
In February 1916 Clifford enlisted in the Queen’s Westminster Rifles with whom he went over to France for the first time that July, serving as a bomber. Six weeks later, on September 10th 1916, he perished in a shell blast at Leuze Wood, on the Somme. He was twenty-five years old and lies buried in the Communal Cemetery at Combles.
