Clark and Hogg Family History

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Major William Lyon Lyon-Clark
1858 - 1934

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William Robinson Clark
His father
William Robinson Clark (1829-1912)
William Lyon Lyon-Clark
William Lyon Clark c. 1913
 
William Lyon Clark was the first son of William Robinson Clark and Elizabeth Jane Higgins. He had five sisters and five brothers.
 
He was christened by his father on the 7th March 1858 at St Matthias, Birmingham, England.
 
He changed his name by deed poll to Lyon-Clark on the 4th April 1911 thus becoming William Lyon Lyon-Clark
 
He married three times and had in total six sons, five by his first wife and one by his second wife.
 
He is believed to have spent much of his early life abroad, in India and South Africa.
 

First marriage of William Lyon Clark

 
His first wife Ada Constance Sophia Hennessey, as a young woman.
 
William Lyon Clark in the dress uniform
of the North Devon Hussars in 1906.
 
Ballinlough Castle, Co. Meath, Ireland,
where William and his sons, Arthur, Hugh and Basil, stayed after retuning from India, around 1904.
[Ballinlough Castle]
Ballinlough Castle
Ballinlough Castle in 2017
William Lyon Lyon-Clark
William Lyon Clark c. 1913
 
In 1880, aged 22, he went to India and managed a tea estate in Badapur, Assam.
 
He married his first wife Ada Constance Sophia Hennessey in Bengal, India in 1884 and they had five childen. They divorced in 1896 and William subsequently took some of his sons to Ireland where they lived in the early 1900's.
 
After his divorce from Ada Constance Sophia Hennessey he returned to England. All three sons may have detoured to South Africa as Arthur and Basil did. A third son, Hugh Mordaunt Lyon Clark, emigrated to Argentina to work for a railway company. There he married and established a family in Argentina and used the name Lyon-Clark.
 

Sons of William Lyon Clark

 
It is not presently known what happened to sons Douglas and Alfred, and they may have died at a young age possibly in a cholera outbreak
 

Arthur Gordon Lyon Clark

Arthur Gordon Lyon Clark
Arthur Gordon Lyon Clark c.1909
 
Arthur who was born in India in 1886 moved to South Africa probably as part of the British Army in the early 1900's. Arthur married three times, firstly in Cape Town, South Africa to Edith Florence Lee who was a dancer on tour with the famous Gaiety Company.
 
Edith Florence Lee
His first wife, Edith Florence Lee
 
They had a daughter, Elizabeth Margaret Lyon Clark, who was born in 1912.
Elizabeth
Elizabth Margaret Lyon Clark c.1942,
the daughter of Arthur Gordon Lyon Clark
and Edith Florence Lee.
 
When war broke out Arthur joined the army and was sent to German South West Africa (Namiba), then in Tanzania and finally in Fance until 1916 where he was gassed. Arthur and Edith divorced in 1919.
 
In 1921 Arthur married Ethel Madeline Horton in Dublin in 1921 but they divorced in 1927. They had no children.
 
Subsequently Arthur became the manager of a gentlemen's fishing lodge at Thorney Weir in west London.
 
When war broke out in 1939 Arthur became an assistant censor in charge of the transatlantic telephone service set up to handle secret telephone calls between Britain and America including calls between Churchill and Roosevelt.
 
Colonel Clark is described in a recent book by Ruth Ive called The Woman Who Censored Churchill
Ruth Ive book
 
Arthur married a younger woman, Gwendoline C Smith, who had worked with him in the secret telephone service, in 1945.
 
Gwendoline C Smith,
the third wife of Arthur Gordon Lyon Clark.
They married in 1945.
 
His daughter Elizabeth had not seen him since 1934 and she traced him through the Red Cross to a hospital where he was being treated for lung trouble . In 1947. Arthur and his wife travelled from Southampton to Cape Town and then by rail to Salisbury (now Harare), Rhodesia where his daughter was living. Athur never recovered his health and died there in 1950
 

Hugh Mordaunt Lyon Clark

Hugh Mordaunt Lyon Clark, emigrated to Argentina to work for a railway company in the early 1900's. There he married and fathered a son called Hugo Guillermo (William) Lyon Clark in 1917.
 
This son, Hugh William Lyon-Clark served in the RAF in WW2 at RAF Heaton Park (now a large Manchester park) and Cirencester (now Cotswold Airport). He married in Oldham in 1945 before returning to Argentina.
 
His family remains in Argentina to the present day. Information about this family is currently emerging.
 

Basil Lyon Clark

Basil Lyon Clark (by first wife) was killed in WW1 while serving as a Captain in the Kings African Rifles and is buried in Dar es Salaam.
 

Second marriage of William Lyon Lyon-Clark

 
Nellie Lyon-Clark
His (second) wife
Helen "Nellie" Lyon-Clark (nee Holt)
c.1919
 
William Lyon-Clark
William Lyon-Clark on the River Thames
with his wife Nellie (right) and friend Winifred Clark (left - no relation).
 
William Lyon Lyon-Clark
William Lyon Clark c. 1913
 
He changed his name by deed poll to Lyon-Clark on the 4th April 1911 thus becoming William Lyon Lyon-Clark.
 
He married Helen "Nellie" Holt in 1909 but they divorced in 1927.
 
He had one son by this marriage to Helen "Nellie" Holt, Anthony William Patrick Lyon-Clark who was killed in France in WW2.
 
Anthony william Patrick Lyon-Clark
His son Anthony William Patrick Lyon-Clark
c.1919

Third marriage of William Lyon Lyon-Clark

 
He then had a third marriage to Irene Margaret Guy. Irene was an artist and designer of theatrical costumes. William died in the south of France in 1934 and Irene in Suffolk, England in 1947, aged 48.
 
William and Irene
 

The sisters of William Lyon Clark
He appeared to have (at least) five sisters:-
  • Katherine Elsie Clark, later Hon Mrs Petre and subsequently Lady Hawtrey
  • Margaret Elizabeth Clark, married Alan Summerly Cole, son of Sir Henry Cole, the first director of the (V&A) South Kensington Museum.
  • Etheldreda Mary Clark (known as Audrey), later Lady Petre
  • Hylda or Hilda Frances E Clark, married the exploere Harry De Windt
  • Augusta M Clark has now been cnfirmed as the previously missing daughter.

The brothers of William Lyon Clark
Although he had five brothers (and probably two more that died at birth or at an early age), no significant trace can be found of them after the 1881 census.
His brother Charles (b.1865) was best man at William's wedding to Nellie (Helen) Holt in 1909 and Charles appears to have married as his wife Mrs Charles Clark attended the funeral service of Lady Hawtrey (his sister Katherine Elsie Clark) in 1930, although there is no record he was there.
His brother Murray (b.1863) had attended the funeral of Sir Charles Hawtrey in 1923.

 
Photographs of William Lyon Clark (and his second marriage) and information kindly supplied by Sarah Montgomery
Photographs and information about William Lyon Clark (and his first marriage) and his son Arthur Gordon Lyon Clark and family kindly supplied by Keith Bryer
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