That is certainly a very interesting piece of newspaper, in particular, the reference to "three South African medals with five clasp's" I wonder if that was correct, I also note that he is not referred to in the past sense, so, was alive at the time and had survived the Great War, do you know where and when he died, also you mention a photograph in an earlier post?
Looking at this from just the Anglo Boer War, the piece of newspaper and the other information you mention, one does tend to assume that he did serve in the 1st Battalion Suffolk Regt, if that was indeed the case, then an omission would need to have taken place in the published casualty returns, not so unusual, they are merely transcribed from the originals.
Five clasp's does indeed lend itself nicely to a QSA/KSA pair of medals for the war to this regiment, Clarke is a very common name in this regiment throughout it's existence, but, if he enlisted using an alias then this matter becomes more difficult.
We have examined John Clarke already, so assuming the name is correct, a very brief look at WO100/174 and WO100/323 leaves us with 4474 Corporal F Clarke and 2203 Private F Clarke, we can discount the latter, after a brief look at WO364, Frederick Clarke joined the regiment in 1888 at the age of 18 years old and was born in Hadleigh, moreover, he did not receive a KSA and did not have the "five clasp's" referred to already.
So we are left with only 4474 Corporal F Clarke as a possible candidate, he certainly does not jump out at me when I looked for him yesterday, I will look again in due course.
SusieW wrote: Hi Ian
I'm (hopefully) attaching the copy from the Bucks Standard which gives all the information I have about Fredrick Clark. It is actually notification about the death of his son (who's plane went down in WWII) but it gives a potted history of Fred's military career - just in case this helps. It's all I have had to go on.
Many thanks once again.
Susie
