2nd Lieutenant Percy Clarkson JOHNSON
1/8th (Ardwick) Battalion Manchester Regiment

Date of birth: 22nd March 1875
Date of death: 16th May 1915

Killed in action aged 40
Commemorated on the Helles Memorial Panels 158 to 170
He was born at Eccles in Lancashire on the 22nd of March 1875 the eldest son of James Clarkson Johnson, iron manufacturer, and Mary Helen (nee Marsland) of Northfield House, Bury Old Road, Prestwich in Manchester, later of 9 Cranley Place, South Kensington. He was christened at St James' Church, Eccles on the 22nd of April 1875.

He was educated at the Junior King’s School from September 1884, but there is no record of when he left. He was educated at Repton School where he was in Latham House from January to November 1888 before going on to Owens College (now the University of Manchester) in March 1892, where he was a member of the 1st Cadet Battalion, Manchester Regiment.

He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 5th (Ardwick) Volunteer Battalion Manchester Regiment on the 25th of April 1900. He served in the South African war as a Captain with the 6th Battalion Manchester Regiment from January to November 1902 where he was awarded the Queen’s Medal with three clasps. He retired from the army in 1903 and moved to Rhodesia where he worked as a farmer and was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in 1907.

He was married at Prestwich in 1905 to Marie Ann (nee Kohler) and they lived at Namilongwi, Pemba, Northern Rhodesia. They had two children, Thewlis Clarkson, born on the 28th of December 1907, and Vivien Lamberty Clarkson, born in 1910. Marie remarried following his death becoming Brocklehurst. He was a Freemason and was admitted as a member of the Brand Lodge at Rouxville in the Orange River Colony on the 23rd of April 1910.

When war broke out he was in England on holiday and applied for a commission. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the in the 1/ 8th (Ardwick) Battalion Manchester Regiment on the 7th of August 1914. On the 10th of September 1914 he landed at Alexandria in Egypt where the battalion was involved in the defence of the Suez Canal. On the 3rd of May 1915 he landed with his battalion at Gallipoli.

On the 16th of May 1915 men from the 1/8th Battalion Manchester Regiment spotted a Turkish machine gun among some trees around 150 yards from their position and Captain Oldfield led a party of 100 men to attempt to capture it. At the same time Major Stevenson and Percy Johnson went forward to look for new positions for the battalion. The two groups had gone forward about 50 yards when four other machine guns, previously unseen among the trees, opened fire forcing the men to retire. During this action Percy Johnson was hit in the stomach and killed.

His mother applied for his medals on the 15th of September 1921.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at Trinity Church, Salford, on the memorial at the University of Manchester and on the family grave at St Mary's Church, Prestwich.


Junior King's School

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