This picture shows Robert Cooper Clements with some of his fellow soldiers. Robert joined the 7th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers in July 1915. Whilst on active service he came back on several occasions to Spittal School. In October 1917 he was given a Commission. Although a Northumberland Fusilier, Robert had been transferred to an Irish regiment by the beginning of August 1918. On 8 August of that year, the first day of the Great Advance, he was reported missing, presumed captured, having been sent on a scouting mission with three volunteers.

When his regiment entered the village of Vieux Berguin in northern France, they found the bodies of his men beside a grave with the inscription “To an Unknown Hero” in a secluded part of the village. On discovering that it was the body of Robert Cooper Clements, it was reinterred in the village cemetery. After the Armistice, the remains of the soldiers interred in this Cemetery, including Robert’s were removed to Outtersteene Communal Cemetery Extension at Bailleul where his memorial can still be seen today.