Name David Clemetson | ||
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David Louis Clemetson (1 October 1893 - 21 September 1918) was born in Jamaica, into a wealthy family. He was one of the first black people to serve as an officer in the British Army. He was commissioned in the Pembroke Yeomanry in October 1915, and he is thought to have been the only black person to hold the rank of lieutenant in the British Army during the First World War. He was killed in action in France in September 1918.
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Another early black officer, Walter Tull, was born in Kent, the son of a black Barbadian carpenter and white Englishwoman; he was commissioned in the Middlesex Regiment on 30 May 1917, and was killed in action on 25 March 1918. A third, George Bemand, was also born in Jamaica, son of a white English father and a black Jamaican mother; he was commissioned in the Royal Field Artillery on 23 May 1915, was killed in action on 26 December 1916. Almost a century earlier, Nathaniel Wells served in the Yeomanry Cavalry of Gloucestershire and Monmouth in 1820 to 1822, and John Perkins served in the Royal Navy from 1775 to 1804.
Early life
Clemetson was born in Port Maria, in Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica. He was the son of David Robert Clemeston and his wife Mary, of the Frontier Estate sugar plantation (the starting point of the slave rebellion known as Tacky's War in 1760). His grandfather, Robert Clemetson, had been a slave, but he was also the son of his owner; he was freed by his father and inherited the plantation, becoming one of the wealthy elite on the island. He was elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica in 1840.
Clemetson was educated at Potsdam School in Jamaica, and then Clifton College in Bristol, where he served in the Officers' Training Corps. He then studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1912, rowing for the First Trinity Rowing Club's fourth boat (crewed by the rugby team).
First World War
Following the outbreak of war, Clemetson left college in 1914 before he graduated, and enlisted in the 1st Sportsman's Battalion (the 23rd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers). He became an Acting Lance Sergeant, and played in the battalion's rugby team. His commander Lieutenant Colonel HJH Inglis recommended him for a commission, and he was transferred to become a second lieutenant in the Pembroke Yeomanry on 27 October 1915.
His unit was sent to Egypt in March 1916 with the 4th Dismounted Brigade (later the 231st Brigade). He may have served at the Second Battle of Gaza (some reports suggest he served on the Macedonian Front in Salonika, but his unit was not sent there). He returned to England after suffering shell shock, and was rescued after the ship taking him back to England, HMHS Dover Castle, was sunk by a German submarine off North Africa on 26 May 1917. While he recuperated at Craiglockhart, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in July 1917.
He returned to his unit, which in March 1917 had joined the Glamorgan Yeomanry to form the 24th (Pembroke & Glamorgan) Battalion of the Welsh Regiment. He served on the Western Front from March 1918.
Clemetson was killed near Péronne, on the Somme, in September 1918, less than two months before the Armistice ended of the war. He is buried at Unicorn Cemetery in Vendhuile. His name is listed on the British West Indies Regiment memorial in Port Maria, Jamaica. A poem, In Memoriam, written by a friend, was published in the Jamaica Gleaner after his death.