William Alan McClelland

Applying for a commission on August 8th, McClelland was granted leave of absence in early September (on half pay) to train with the college OTC contingent. On September 19th he was Gazetted 2nd Lieutenant and promoted on October 4th to 1st Lieutenant, with 11th Sherwood Foresters, a K3 battalion raised at Derby attached to 70th Brigade, 23rd Division.In August 1915, 11th Notts & Derby Regiment embarked for France and served on the Western Front for the remainder of the war. However, after a month in reserve, McClelland was transferred to 17th Sherwood Foresters (The Welbeck Rangers), but moved to 15th Sherwood Foresters, (a bantam unit) when 17th embarked for France in March 1916. McClelland became a T/Captain and Acting Adjutant on September 3rd 1915 and was again promoted, to T/Major, on January 1st 1916. As part of 35th Division, 15th Sherwood Foresters entered the Somme battle on July 6th 1916. On August 8th, McClelland was invalided home suffering from wounds and shell shock having ‘been blown up twice in five minutes.’ He was unable to return to the Front until October 27th 1917 by which time the battalion had moved to Belgium and was becoming embroiled in the quagmires and crater fields of Passchendaele which were to form the hellish backdrop to most of the last few weeks of McClelland’s life. On October 22nd, his battalion diarist noted 3 officer casualties and 15 other ranks killed, 160 wounded, 20 missing in operations south of Houthoulst. Eight days later, the battalion encountered heavy artillery fire near Marechal which inflicted over twenty casualties and the following day it was exposed to constant streams of gas shells. Lice and an outbreak of diphtheria compounded 15th Sherwood Foresters’ end of year misery. By January 1918, with the C.O. on leave, McClelland was in temporary command. On 18th January, following rewiring operations, McClelland died in Duhallow Advanced Dressing Station from wounds received the same day. 107th Field Ambulance recorded multiple gun shot wounds as the cause of death but an eyewitness account refutes this; ‘We are all in a muddle today,’ wrote W.F. Evelyn Denison, ‘as Major McClelland…and the man acting Adjutant, went out for a walk to one of the companies and a stray shell came over and killed them both…It’s very sad and all the more so happening so unexpectedly like this and not in action. He was a very clever man and a professor or teacher of some sort in Nottingham.’ The chaplain’s tribute perhaps explains why a teacher/soldier with a few months combat experience was entrusted with the command of 15th Sherwood Foresters. ‘We are all of us filled with grief at our loss,’ he began, ‘for the major had endeared himself to us all…He was one of the bravest men in the line that I have ever seen.’ Such sentiments may have helped assuage Florence McClelland’s grief but a more immediate preoccupation was feeding her children; months after McClelland’s death, she had received no payment from the War Office and her desperation was evident in a letter of October 10th 1918. ‘You informed me on 18th June last,’ she complained ‘that the sum of £264. 6s. 10d was due from army funds to the estate of my late husband Major W.A. McClelland…I shall be glad to have the money due as it is urgently needed.’

SourceBritannia Calls: Nottingham schools and the push for Great War victory by David NunnMcClelland's son William served as a fighter pilot during World War Two and was Mentioned in Despatches (letter from McClelland Snr's granddaughter Maggie Helliwell to David Nunn 12/1/2015).