Clement Wishart was born in the Byker area of Newcastle on 26 September 1889. He was the third child of John Wishart, a boilersmith from Scotland, and his wife, Mary Black. Clement also had seven half-siblings through his father’s previous marriage to Elizabeth Grant, and when he was born, his father was almost sixty years old (John was still fathering children ten years later!.) When he was fifteen, Clement’s father died, and his mother remarried to a labourer named George Hunter. By 1911 Clement had found a job working as a metal gleaner in a local factory, and lived with his siblings, mother, and stepfather in a brick terraced house at 86 Kendal Street.

On 28 August 1914, Clement visited the Newcastle recruiting office and joined the Royal Field Artillery. Having been passed fit for active service, he was mobilised during January 1915 and sent to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in Egypt on 1 July. It is unknown which unit Clement was initially assigned to, however, at some point, he joined the 26th Battery, which formed part of the 17th Artillery Brigade in the 29th Division.

At the time Clement arrived in Egypt, the 26th Battery was serving on the Gallipoli Peninsula and he may have joined them there although unfortunately, his service papers have not survived, so it cannot be ascertained exactly when he was taken on strength. In January 1916 the Allies left Gallipoli and returned to Egypt where the brigade prepared to move to the front in France. At the end of the month, Clement was likely based at Suez and would have embarked for Marseilles at the start of March.

On 6 April the 29th Divisional Artillery relieved the 31st in the Englebelmer Sector, with gun positions situated north of Albert near the village of Mailly Maillet. Around 19 May Clement received a gunshot wound in his left foot, and he was subsequently discharged from service almost a year later on 14 May 1917. At the time he had been stationed with the 1A Reserve Brigade, which was based in Newcastle and consisted of three reserve batteries.

For a time after the war, Clement lived at 9 Edwin Street with three of his brothers: Albert, David, and Stanley, who had all been in the military. Around 1921/22 he moved to Doncaster where he found work as a glass polisher in the new Pilkingtons factory at Kirk Sandall. He met and married the daughter of a signalman from Barnetby Le Wold, Lincolnshire named Cosey Gladding. Cosey had been married twice before. Firstly to a Colin Kemp with whom she had two sons (though one died in infancy), and then secondly to Herbert Platt. Both husbands died not long after the weddings in 1914 and 1920 respectively, and so Cosey must have been hoping for ‘third time lucky’ when she married Clement.

On 3 March 1923, while living at 21 Lancaster Avenue in Kirk Sandall, husband and wife became parents to their first child, a son, with a daughter following a year later. Cosey enjoyed twelve years of marriage with Clement until March 1934, when she was widowed for the third time.
He was buried in the Saint Oswald’s Churchyard, Kirk Sandall. Cosey joined him three years later.

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