Blount, Clavell Monkhouse Rhonde (Clavell)
Lance Corporal
No. 5600, ‘C’ Company, 2nd Regiment, South African Infantry
Formerly Natal Light Horse
Killed in action on Wednesday 19 July 1916 (aged 36)
No known grave
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Thiepval Memorial, France (Pier and Face 4 C)
Family grave headstone in St Margaret and St Andrew Churchyard, Littleham, East Devon
Brother of Private Alfred Muster Blount
BIOGRAPHY
Clavell Monkhouse Rhonde Blount was born on 19 April 1880 in High Street, Holywood, and he was a son of retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Clavell William Simpson Blount and Elizabeth Ann Blount (nee Plant). His mother was born in Demerara (now in Guyana) South America, and his parents were married on 29 March 1865 in Woodford Church, Jamaica. Elizabeth Ann Plant was the eldest daughter of Deputy Commissary-General Plant, Jamaica.
In July 1863 Lieutenant Clavell William Simpson Blount had appeared before a court-martial charged with being drunk on 29 April when he was officer of the watch aboard his ship, the Royal Adelaide. The court considered the charge ‘not proved’ and he was acquitted.
In 1871 the Blount family was living in Suffolk, England and in 1878 they were living in High Street, Holywood.
In 1901 the Blount family was living in Wellington Park Terrace, Belfast.
Clavell William Simpson Blount was Superintendent in the Royal Hospital, and he and Elizabeth Ann Blount had at least ten children:
Charles Kirby (born around 1867 in England; a clergyman, he married Adelaide Keziah Crowe on 17 April 1895 in Monkstown Parish Church of Ireland Church, Rathdown, Dublin; they had two children, Leonora Elizabeth born on 26 January 1896, and Eirene Victoria born on 5 May 1897)
Flora Albina Clavell (baptised on 19 July 1868 in Aldeburgh cum Hazelwood, Suffolk, England; died on 28 January 1873, aged four years)
George Leo William (baptised on 20 April 1870 in Aldeburgh cum Hazelwood, Suffolk, England; he married Kathleen Harriette Black on 11 September 1901 in a Church of Ireland ceremony at the bride’s residence, 29 College Gardens, Belfast)
Reeta Fenwick (born around 1872 in England; she married the Rev Charles Percy Herbert Reynolds on 27 April 1898 in St Thomas’s Church of Ireland Church, Belfast; her brother the Rev Charles Kirby Blount officiated)
Rose Eva Hore (born around 1874 in England; she married George William Crowe, an architect from Monkstown, Dublin, on 11 June 1902 in St Thomas’s Church of Ireland Church Belfast; he died on 7 September 1950, and she died on 2 April 1962)
Hamilton Begbie (born around 1876 in England; an unmarried clerk, he lived in Belfast and died of pneumonia/influenza on 26 January 1907 at the Thompson Home/Hospital in Lisburn)
Alfred Munster (born 14 November 1878 in High Street, Holywood)
Clavell Monkhouse Rhonde (born 19 April 1880 in High Street, Holywood)
Adels Alexander Clarke (born on 10 June 1883 in Brecart, Toome, Co Antrim; he married Gertrude Elise Violet Sainsbury on 15 August 1914 in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Dublin)
Kathleen Fitzgerald (born on 14 December 1885 in Kells, Co Antrim; she married Edward Lawson McDonald on 16 December 1915 in Holy Trinity Church of Ireland Church, Rathmines, Dublin; during the Great War Lieutenant Edward Lawson McDonald served with the 12th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, and was killed in action on 22 November 1917; he has no known grave and is commemorated on Panel 10 of the Cambrai Memorial in France; Kathleen predeceased Edward when she died of uraemia and heart failure on 3 October 1917 at 16 Trafalgar Terrace, Monkstown; her brother, A. A. Blount was with her when she died)
Their father, Clavell William Simpson Blount, died on 20 November 1888 and was buried on 27 November 1888 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Their mother, Elizabeth Ann Blount (nee Plant), died of heart disease on 28 September 1924 at The Crescent, Dundalk; her son-in-law George William Crowe was with her when she died.
After 1901 the Blount family moved to Grosvenor Square in Dublin and then to 16 Trafalgar Terrace, Monkstown, Co Dublin.
Clavell Monkhouse Rhonde Blount was working as a shipping clerk when he enlisted on 9 January 1900 at Belfast and he served during the South African War as a Private with the 54th Company, 13th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry (No. 9523). Aged 19, it was noted that he was five feet six inches tall with brown eyes, brown hair, and a fresh complexion. He was taken prisoner-of-war on 31 May 1900, subsequently released, and discharged at his own request on 31 December 1900 at Johannesburg. During 1901/1902 he served as a Trooper with the South African Constabulary (No. 204).
Clavell Monkhouse Rhonde Blount remained in South Africa where he worked as a schoolteacher. He and Florence Elizabeth Mallet, a hospital nurse (born 1870), were married on 25 November 1904 at St Peter’s Church, Klerksdorp, Transvaal, South Africa. They had one son:
Patrick Clavell (born 11 March 1906 at Zeerust, North West Province, South Africa; Patrick married Agnes Madeline Ventris on 24 February 1933 in Holy Trinity Church of England Church, Brompton, London, and he died in 1999)
Clavell Monkhouse Rhonde Blount enlisted in August 1914 and during the Great War he served with the 2nd Regiment, South African Infantry in German South West Africa and in Egypt. In January 1916 he was wounded while serving in Egypt, and he was killed in action at Delville Wood in France on 19 July 1916. His widow, Florence Elizabeth Blount, was living at 5 Pennsylvania Crescent, Exeter, Devon, England. Florence Elizabeth Blount (nee Mallet) died in 1964.
[The Boer Wars were two wars fought during 1880-1881 and 1899-1902 by the British Empire against the Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic.]