{{Short description|British Army Officer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox military person | honorific_prefix = Lieutenant-General | name = Sir Travers Clarke | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|GBE|KCB|KCMG}} | image = File:Sir E. Trevers Clark LCCN2014717928.jpg | caption = | nickname = | birth_date = {{birth date|1871|04|06|df=yes}} | birth_place = Clayhidon, Devon, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1962|02|02|1871|04|06|df=yes}} | death_place = | burial_place = East Finchley Cemetery and Crematorium, East Finchley, London, England | allegiance = United Kingdom | branch = British Army | service_years = 1890–1926 | rank = Lieutenant-General | service_number = | unit = Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers | commands = 23rd Infantry Brigade | battles = Tirah Expedition<br/>Second Boer War<br/>First World War | awards = Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire<br/>Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath<br/>Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George<br/>Order of the White Eagle (Serbia) | relations = | other_work = }} Lieutenant-General '''Sir Travers Edwards Clarke''' (6 April 1871 – 2 February 1962) was a British Army officer who served in the Second Boer War and the First World War. During the First World War, he held various staff positions; he was Quartermaster-General to the Armies in France from 1917 to 1921, when he became Quartermaster-General to the Forces.
==Military career== [[File:General Charles Monro 1915.jpg|thumb|left|Lieutenant General Charles Monro (front row, centre, arms folded), GOC I Corps, and members of his corps staff in France, c. 1915. Stood in the second row, fourth from the left, is Travers Edward Clarke.]]
Clarke attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers on 29 October 1890.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=26101|page=5688|date=28 October 1890}}</ref> He was promoted to lieutenant on 20 July 1892, and served with his regiment on the North West Frontier of India and in the Tirah Expedition of 1897–98, following which he was promoted to captain on 13 April 1898.<ref>Hart´s Army list, 1903</ref> Later the same year he was appointed adjutant of the 2nd Battalion of his regiment on 31 October 1898, serving until 31 October 1902.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=27491 |page=7014 |date=4 November 1902}}</ref> During these years, his battalion saw active service in the Second Boer War in South Africa from 1900 to 1902.<ref>{{cite book |title=Outline History of The Royal Irish Rangers (27th (inniskilling), 83rd and 87th) |last=Corbally |first=M J P M |year=1979 |publisher=Royal Irish Rangers |location=Armagh|page=34–36}}</ref>
After peace was declared in June 1902, he left Cape Town to arrive in the United Kingdom the following month.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=The Army in South Africa – the Coronation contingent |date= 11 June 1902 |page=14 |issue=36791}}</ref> For his service in South Africa, he received the Queen's South Africa Medal with four clasps.<ref name="WWW">''Who Was Who''</ref> In March 1907 he succeeded Captain Louis Lipsett as a deputy assistant and quartermaster general<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28012|page=2505|date=12 April 1907}}</ref> during which time he was promoted to major in February 1910,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28345|page=1596|date=4 March 1910}}</ref> and later served as a DAAG at the Staff College, Camberley, taking over from Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Jeudwine in January 1912.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28573|page=448|date=19 January 1912}}</ref>
thumb|left|Lieutenant General Sir Travers Edwards Clarke, Quartermaster-General of the BEF, France from 23 December 1917 and some of his staff at GHQ Montreuil, 22 September 1918.
thumb|right|Major-General Travers Clarke, the Quartermaster General. Near Montreuil, 22 September 1918.
Clarke served in the First World War, being made an assistant quartermaster general in December 1914<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29042|page=582|date=15 January 1915|supp=y}}</ref> He then briefly commanded the 23rd Infantry Brigade from July to September 1915, taking over from Major General Reginald Pinney, and for which he was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=26238|page=7174|date=20 July 1915|supp=y}}</ref> He was then made a deputy adjutant and quartermaster general.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29335|page=10373|date=19 October 1915|supp=y}}</ref> Later, after being promoted to temporary major general in June 1916,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29958|page=1883|date=23 February 1917}}</ref> as quartermaster general for the British Armies in France from 1917.<ref name=WWW/> In January 1917 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29886|page=2|date=29 December 1916|supp=y}}</ref> In this role he was responsible for transferring Allied prisoners of war back to the United Kingdom and he strove to ensure they were treated properly and given clothing and blankets as they returned from Germany.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=j7yJM6mG1PoC&dq=%22Sir+Travers+Clarke%22&pg=PA75 ''Objects of concern: Canadian prisoners of war through the twentieth century'' By Jonathan Franklin and William Vance, Page 75] University of British Columbia Pross, 1997, {{ISBN|978-0-7748-0520-9}}]</ref> He was subsequently appointed to the Order of the White Eagle by the King of Serbia.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Acović|first=Dragomir|title=Slava i čast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima|trans-title=Fame and honour: Decorations among Serbs, Serbs among decorations|year=2013|location=Belgrade|publisher=Službeni Glasnik|pages=591|language=sh|isbn=978-8-65-191750-2}}</ref>
After the war Clarke was promoted to the permanent rank of lieutenant general in June 1919<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=31395|page=7421|date=6 June 1918}}</ref> and became Quartermaster-General to the Forces; he retired in 1926.<ref name="WWW"/> From January 1923 to 1941 he was the ceremonial colonel of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, in which role he succeeded General Sir Archibald Murray.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/inf/027Innis.htm|title=The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers|publisher=regiments.org|access-date=11 January 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210173735/http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/inf/027Innis.htm|archive-date=10 February 2006}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=32791|date=30 January 1923|page=708}}</ref>
Clarke was also Deputy Chairman of the British Empire Exhibition in 1924.<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1923/jul/24/british-empire-exhibition-1924 House of Lords] Hansard, 24 July 1924</ref>
==Personal life== In 1911, Clarke married Mary Jordan, daughter of Sir John Jordan, the British ambassador to China. The couple had one son, John Walrond Edward Clarke (1913–1987) of Clough, County Down, before Mary's death in the outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918. He remarried in 1921, to Irene Roe (née Cross), the widow of an officer in the Iniskillings. By his second marriage, he had two sons: Evelyn, killed on active service in 1944, and John; and one daughter, Betty.<ref name="WWW"/>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== *"CLARKE, Lieut-Gen. Sir Travers (Edwards)", in {{Cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A & C Black|year=2007|edition=Online|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U47865}}
{{s-start}} {{s-mil}} {{s-bef|before=Sir John Cowans}} {{s-ttl|title=Quartermaster-General to the Forces|years=1919–1923}} {{s-aft|after=Sir Walter Campbell}} |- {{S-hon}} {{succession box|title=Colonel of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers|years=1923–1941|before= Sir Archibald Murray|after=Sir Claude Auchinleck}} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Travers}} Category:1871 births Category:1962 deaths Category:Military personnel from Devon Category:British Army lieutenant generals Category:Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Category:British Army generals of World War I Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Category:Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers officers Category:British Army personnel of the Second Boer War Category:Academics of the Staff College, Camberley