Richard Arnold Clarke (known as Arnold) was the youngest of the six living children of Richard Feaver and Rebecca Clarke. He was the youngest of a close knit, lively, well-educated, and loving family. Born in 1893, he had four surviving elder sisters—Dorothy (b. 1884), Edith (b.1886), Anne or Queenie (b. 1887) and Winifred (b. 1889). He also had one elder brother, Wilfrid, who was two years older than him.

His sisters had all been educated at primary and secondary school and then two of them attained university degrees (not that they were awarded as women were not allowed to be awarded their degrees at this stage). Arnold and his brother were the babies of the family but shared a love of cricket and games with their sisters and photographs show happy smiles and a family who happily spent time with each other.

Arnold was sent to boarding school in Worthing at the age of seven and then joined his brother at St Lawrence School in Ramsgate in 1904.  In 1909, Arnold finished his schooling and headed to Glasgow to undertake an engineering apprenticeship with Yarrow shipbuilders in Glasgow.  He was still there in 1914 when war broke out.  He wrote a letter to his Father, on 5th September 1915, the day he, and coincidentally his brother Wilfrid, signed up to serve in the First World War.

“My dear Father,

It is one of the prerogatives of youth to act in haste and repent at leisure but moreover he who waits to see everything before he decides, usually never decides at all.  After some good deliberation however I have decided and having passed the doctor this morning, I (needless to add with n others) am to be sworn in as a ‘Seaman’ in the Royal Naval Brigade.  I might be able to get in the engine room later but doubt it; even so we were told that our service will probably be nearly all on land.  We shall be living and drilling at the headquarters in Govan for a few days when we shall be drafted to Deal.  That is about all I can sprout about for the present.  I will write as soon as anything definite crops out and leaving any sentiment aside I had better strike out in the business here.  Of course I shall not need any more money and with the letter I am going to send my more treasured possessions and also my P.O book will arrive home early next week. 

It will be a nice feeling doing my little bit at last.  I had a good job a Yarrow’s and I hope to get back there after it is over. Things have happened at a very great rate.   I told the Chief draughtsman on Thursday I had put my name down for service.  The pc came last night.  I left for work early this morning, was medically examined by 12pm and we are sworn in at 6pm tonight.  France in a fortnight and Berlin within 4 weeks, of course these latter two are both provisional only.”

He signs off – “Ever your loving son, Arnold.”

It all worked out a little differently from what Arnold expected.  Instead of being drafted to Deal, he was drafted to Pembroke on shore training in Chatham where he was trained to be an Engine Room Artificer.  He made it to the engine room straight away.  After spending some time in Chatham he was sent back to Scotland, to Granton, to continue his training.  He wrote to Queenie from there on January 22, 1915 -  he did not enjoy it……

“My dear Q,

About the last thing I ought to do is write a letter as I am by no means in a letter writing mood, therefore attribute any vituperations or aberrations to a distorted brain (despite 20 minutes on top of a cave on a cold night)……………..Ever since getting my so called hook my luck has deserted me and I wish I had never seen Granton and I shall be heartily glad when I can safely put E.R.A RN after my name but procrastination and delay are my only portion in this world and a brain running to seed……”

From Granton Arnold was drafted to HMS India.  I think he joined her in April 1915 in London.

 

Arnold’s letters

This whole project, the book and this website, have been inspired by Arnold’s letters.  Whilst organizing the family archives I managed to collate just over 40 letters and postcards written by Arnold from the day he signed up to just before returning home at the end of the war.  I was fascinated by these letters and thought they the makings of a story to share but then my father-in-law found a letter that had been sold through an online auction house.  This fascinated us.  We did not know that there were other letters.  We started keeping an eye out for more and since then I have found at least half a dozen more being sold.  More interestingly, however, was finding even more letters in the philately community.  We found out that a collection of Arnold’s letters had been sold in an auction in 1984 in the New Forest.  We can only assume that when Edith died in 1984 (she was the last surviving sibling) somehow these letters got separated from the others that Queenie had kept and ended up being sold.  I don’t think we will ever know the complete story.  A philatelist named Roger Partridge either bought the letters in 1984 or at some stage after and completed some extensive research on HMS India and her men.  Also in the philately community, a gentleman named John Theisen also conducted research from a philatelist viewpoint into the mail being sent to and from Jørstadmoen.  It took me a little while to work out that the letters were valuable not for the actual letters but for their envelopes and censor markings.  I have seen them for sale for over £300.  We have counted over 30 letters owned by non-family members.

I have included photos of a small collection of letters written by Arnold during his internment – the rest are included in more detail in my book. 

Arnold survived the war and spent a whole 6 months at home before heading back out to sea. He was at sea or involved in shipping for the rest of his career and passed a love of shipping on to his son and a love of being on the sea to his grandchildren and great grandchildren.  He died in 1978.