Norman Clegg
Date of birth: 1911
Date of death: 23.5.1944
Area: Wrenthorpe
Regiment: Green Howards
Family information: Husband of Lucy nee Keeble
Rank: Private
Service number: 4397665
War Service
Timothy Norman Clegg was Private 4397665 in the Green Howards (Yorkshire Regiment) 1st Battalion. He died on 23rd May 1944 and is buried in the Beach Head War Cemetery Anzio. He had taken part in the Battle of Anzio which began on 22nd January 1944 ending with the fall of Rome on June 5th. During that time the Allied Forces suffered heavy losses – 7,000 killed and 36,000 wounded or missing. May 23rd 1944 became known as the “Break out from Anzio” as at dawn that day the Allies broke out from the beach head where they had landed and launched an attack on the enemy.
On 10th June 1944 there was the following memorial in the Wakefield Express:
“CLEGG – May 23rd 1944 whilst on active service in Italy. Private TIMOTHY NORMAN, the beloved husband of Lucy and daddy of Norman and Geoffrey. Rest in peace”.
And in the same edition a report of his death:
“KILLED IN ACTION – Mrs L Clegg of 14, Royal Oak Yard, Wrenthorpe, has been notified that her husband, Private Timothy Norman Clegg was killed in action on May 23rd 1944, whilst serving in Italy. He joined the Army in December 1940 and went overseas in February 1942”.
He is remembered on the Beach Head Memorial, Anzio, Italy.
Family Life
Timothy N Clegg’s birth was registered in the July quarter of 1911 in the Wakefield District with his mother’s maiden name recorded as Blackbeard. I found a marriage between Timothy Clegg and Ada Blackbeard in 1910. I found three children registered to the couple, the first being Timothy and then William E Clegg in 1914 and Mary I Clegg in 1916.
I found a Timothy Norman Clegg in the 1939 electoral roll living on “Brandicar” with a Lucy Clegg. A bit more digging found his marriage to Lucy Keeble at St Anne’s Church, Wrenthorpe in 1935. On his signature it appears he doesn’t known how to spell Timothy, which would perhaps indicate he used Norman as his first name – perhaps to distinguish himself from his father who was also Timothy. Later that same year they had a baby boy whom they also named Timothy N Clegg.
In 1947 the widowed Lucy Clegg married Clifford Medlock and the couple went to live on Bradford Road in Wrenthorpe and in 1959 the couple were joined on the electoral register by Timothy N Clegg who is presumably Lucy’s son to her first husband.
Beach Head Memorial Anzio
