Percy Clive
Photograph in the The Illustrated London News following Clive's 1900 election as an MP.
Member of Parliament for Ross
In office
1900-1906
1908-1918
Personal details
Born
(1873-03-13)13 March 1873

Whitfield, Herefordshire, England
Died(1918-04-05)5 April 1918
Bucquoy, France
Political partyConservative (after 1912)
Liberal Unionist Party (until 1912)
Children2+, including Meysey and Lewis
RelativesWilliam Feilding (grandfather)
EducationRoyal Military College, Sandhurst
Military career
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
RankCaptain
UnitGrenadier Guards
Niger Field Force
Lancashire Fusiliers
Battles/warsSecond Boer War
World War I
AwardsLegion of Honour
Croix de Guerre

Percy Archer Clive, DL (13 March 1873 – 5 April 1918[1]) was a British army officer and Liberal Unionist Party politician.[2]

Biography

Armorial shield of the Clive family; the design used in the heraldic shield memorial to Clive in the House of Commons[3]

Percy Clive was the eldest son of Charles Meysey Bolton Clive of Whitfield, Herefordshire, by his marriage to Lady Katherine Feilding, daughter of William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant in 1891.[4] He was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Herefordshire in December 1894,[5] and was attached to the Niger Field Force from 1897 to 1899 based in Lagos, rising to the rank of captain.[2] In May 1899 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.[6]

He was elected to the Commons as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ross division of Herefordshire in the "khaki election" of 1900,[7] while fighting in the Second Boer War. He did not return to England to take his seat until February 1902,[8] and in June that year was Private Secretary for Parliamentary purposes to Lord George Hamilton, Secretary of State for India.[9] In December 1903 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to E G Pretyman, Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty.[10]

He was unseated at the 1906 general election,[7] which saw the Liberal Party win a landslide victory. He returned to Parliament at a by-election in January 1908,[7] and remained Ross's MP until his death. Following a merger of the Unionist parties in 1912 he became a Conservative.

He returned to the army in World War I and was wounded twice.[11] Clive was awarded the Legion of Honour, and the Croix de Guerre, and was twice Mentioned in Despatches.[12] As a lieutenant-colonel of the Grenadier Guards he was killed in action when attached to the 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, 5 April 1918 at Bucquoy. Memorial services were held on 17 April at St Margaret's, Westminster and Hereford Cathedral.[12] He is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.[13] Clive is commemorated on Panel 8 of the Parliamentary War Memorial in Westminster Hall, one of 22 MPs that died during World War I to be named on that memorial.[14][15] Clive is one of 19 MPs who fell in the war who are commemorated by heraldic shields in the Commons Chamber.[3] A further act of commemoration came with the unveiling in 1932 of a manuscript-style illuminated book of remembrance for the House of Commons, which includes a short biographical account of the life and death of Clive.[16][17]

His elder son Major Meysey George Dallas Clive (1907–1943) was killed with the Grenadier Guards in World War II in North Africa on 1 May 1943.[18] His younger son Lewis Clive (1910–1938) won a gold medal for rowing at the 1932 Olympics and was a member of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, killed in action in August 1938.

Some of his military papers were deposited in the King's College London archives in 1997 but his family retain others.[19]

References

  1. ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "R" (part 2)
  2. ^ a b Debrett's House of Commons and the Judicial Bench (PDF). London: Dean & Son. 1901. p. 28. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  3. ^ a b "Clive". Heraldic shields to MPs, First World War. UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  4. ^ "From The London Gazette, Tuesday, Nov. 3". The Times. 4 November 1891. p. 8.
  5. ^ "No. 26577". The London Gazette. 7 December 1894. pp. 7199–7200.
  6. ^ "News in Brief". The Times. 10 May 1899. p. 12.
  7. ^ a b c Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1974]. British parliamentary election results 1885–1918 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 294. ISBN 0-900178-27-2.
  8. ^ "The War. Casualties, Deaths From Disease And Wounds". The Times. 6 February 1902. p. 10.
  9. ^ The Times. No. 36784. London. 3 June 1902. p. 9. ((cite news)): Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. 29 December 1903. p. 4.
  11. ^ "House of Commons Casualties: Captain Clive Wounded". The Times. 11 August 1915. p. 9.
  12. ^ a b "Deaths". The Times. 18 April 1918. p. 9.
  13. ^ "Casualty Details: Clive, Percy Archer". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  14. ^ "Recording Angel memorial Panel 8". Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall. UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  15. ^ "List of names on the Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall" (PDF). Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall. UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  16. ^ "House of Commons War Memorial: Final Volumes Unveiled by The Speaker". The Times. No. 46050. London. 6 February 1932. p. 7.
  17. ^ Moss-Blundell, Edward Whitaker, ed. (1931). The House of Commons Book of Remembrance 1914–1918. E. Mathews & Marrot.
  18. ^ "Casualty Details: Clive, Meysey George Dallas". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  19. ^ "CLIVE, Capt Percy Archer (1873-1918)". King's College London. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
Parliament of the United Kingdom Preceded byMichael Biddulph Member of Parliament for Ross 1900–1906 Succeeded byAlan Coulston Gardner Preceded byAlan Coulston Gardner Member of Parliament for Ross 1908–1918 Succeeded byCharles Thornton Pulley
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