Regiment: 2nd/6th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Service No: 6285 (formerly 2672 of the Royal Hampshire Regiment)
Date & place of birth: July qtr. 1897, at Chithurst, Sussex
Date & place of death: 19 July 1916 (aged 19) near Loos, France.
Although living in Horndean when he enlisted, Clinton Waterman was a local ‘lad’ having been born at Chithurst and previously lived in Durford Wood and Rogate.
Family background
In 1901, Clinton Waterman lived in Durford Wood. He was the second son of five children of George Waterman, who was born in Stedham, a wood foreman, and his wife, Alice who was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
By 1911 the family had moved to Church Cottage, Rogate [now the site of East Lodge] and George was now a ‘burner in a brickyard’, possibly at Nyewood while the oldest son Charlie was a ‘labourer in a brickyard’. Sometime between 1911 and the date of Clinton’s death, the family had moved to ‘Shuttlecock Cottage’ at Clanfield near Horndean.
Whilst living in Rogate it is recorded that George was ‘exceptionally fair in complexion’ and that Clinton was also fair but had his mother’s ‘wiry build and energy’.
Military service
Clinton enlisted in Petersfield into the 6th Battalion of the Royal Hampshire Regiment in late 1914, and was later transferred to the 2nd/6th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The 2nd/6th Battalion was a Territorial Force that formed in Coventry in October 1914 as part of the 2/1st Warwickshire Brigade of the 2/1st South Midland Division. It then moved to Chelmsford and in August 1915, when the formation became the 182nd Brigade of the 61st Division, it moved to Salisbury Plain.
On 21 May 1916, it mobilised for war and landed in France where the formation became the 143rd Brigade of the 48th Division.
Death and commemoration
Clinton Waterman died of his wounds on 19 July 1916. He is commemorated on Panel 22 to 25 of the Loos Memorial in France, and also on the Rogate War Memorial.