BORN GRINDALE, YORKS 16/08/1881. SON OF JOHN CLAXTON & ALICE (BERRY). A FITTER. HE MARRIED AT HULL IN 1902. HIS WIFE ANNIE ANDERSON (BORN 3/3/1879) LIVED AT 72, SYMONS STREET, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS) & REYNOLDSON STREET, HULL. THEY HAD THREE CHILDREN, EDITH ELEANOR, ELSIE AND ARTHUR STANLEY.
HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. SERVED WITH THE HULL COMMERICALS. KILLED ON 13/04/1918, AGED 37
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE RICHARD CLAXTON 28044. Richard was the husband of Annie Claxton and resident at 72 Symons Street, Fountain Road in Hull when war broke out. He had been a Territorial and as such received Mobilisation papers early in 1915. He enlisted on 20th May at City Hall in Hull and was sent to the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment. Other details of his life are lost to history, as unfortunately was he. Richard Claxton was killed in action on 13th April 1918 during the German Spring Offensive and his body was never recovered. His name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial. Richard was the last of the Pals to die that day and at 4am. On the 14th they received orders to retire. The orders had been issued at 1.30am, but communication had been halted when shelling destroyed the telephone lines, the battalion therefore had to withdraw in daylight. Thankfully a thick mist had descended and their exit from the front line went unnoticed. When the Germans attacked later that day expecting to scythe through the remnants of a worn out enemy, they met a line of fully fighting fit Australians spoiling for a fight. The attack failed, the line held and the Spring Offensive ground to a halt on a battlefield littered with the remains of men we have spent the last six weeks remembering. The Pals had done their duty for King and Country, but at what cost.
Richard was a fitters labourer and had 3 children – Edith Eleanor Claxton b 1/2/1903, Elsie b 22/7/1906, Arthur Stanley b1 July 1909 – 1979. His mother had remarried by the time of his death and was living at 12 Jubilee Terrace, Grange St, Hull with Mabel his sister and her children George Pearson b 1909, Harold b 1913, Eve b 1917.
