Jaen Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born in Monkwearmouth on 25th October 1883, the first born son of shipwright Robert and his wife Mary Graham, Clayson was baptised three weeks later. He had two sisters, Margaret and Edith, and three brothers, Robert, James and Thomas. By 1901 the family had moved to Bonner’s Field, close to the river and ten years later they had moved south of the river to Rothesay Street. Clayson followed in his father’s footsteps and worked at the local shipyard where he was an apprentice caulker and cutter, and having finished his apprenticeship in 1911, just after the census had been taken, he left England for the USA and then crossed into Canada. It is not known where he settled, but he was a member of the 9th Mississuga Horse, a local militia group in Ontario. On 23rd July 1915 he was in Toronto enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force as Private 13975 in “C” Company, 75th (Mississuaga) Battalion, and after initial training at Niagara camp and Toronto, the 75th embarked on the SS Empress of Britain and arrived in Liverpool on 9th April 1916.

Arriving in France in mid June 1916 and forming part of the newly created 11th Brigade, 4th Canadian Division the 75th saw their first action in the trenches in Belgium in August 1916 and then moved on to the Somme where they fought in the battles at the Regina and Desire Trenches. In December, the 75th moved to Vimy Ridge to prepare for the start of the assault on 9th April 1917. On 17th August Private Wake received a shrapnel wound to his left knee in the fighting around Lens and was evacuated to the Southern General Hospital at Portsmouth, followed by convalescence at Epsom before being discharged in October.

Posted to the 12th Reserve Battalion based at East Sandling until fully fit, Clayson was transferred back to the 75th in April 1918 and rejoined them in France on 12th August. It was during the fighting on 2nd September on the Drocourt-Quéant Line that Private Wake was killed in action. He is buried in Dury Mill British Cemetery, ten miles south east of Arras.

Clayson Wake is remembered in Monkwearmouth on M46.04 and in Sunderland on S140.048 part 9 page 202

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Wake