Percy Clive

{{Short description|British Army officer and politician (1873–1918)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Percy Clive

| image = Percy Archer Clive.png

| alt =

| caption = Photograph in The Illustrated London News following Clive's 1900 election as an MP

| office1 = Member of Parliament for Ross

| term1 = 1900–1906
1908–1918

| party = Conservative (after 1912)
Liberal Unionist Party (until 1912)

| birth_name = {{birth date|1873|03|13|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Whitfield, Herefordshire, England

| death_date = {{death date|1918|04|05|1873|03|13|df=yes}}

| death_place = Bucquoy, France

| education = Royal Military College, Sandhurst

| relatives = William Feilding (grandfather)

| spouse =

| children = 2+, including Meysey and Lewis

| module =

{{Infobox military person

| embed = yes

| allegiance = United Kingdom

| branch =

| unit = Grenadier Guards
Niger Field Force
Lancashire Fusiliers

| battles = Second Boer War
World War I

| rank = Captain

| awards = Legion of Honour
Croix de Guerre

}}}}

Percy Archer Clive, DL (13 March 1873 – 5 April 1918{{Rayment-hc|r|2|date=March 2012}}) was a British army officer and Liberal Unionist Party politician.{{Cite book|title=Debrett's House of Commons and the Judicial Bench |year=1901 |publisher=Dean & Son |location=London |page=28 |url=https://archive.org/download/debrettshouseo1901londuoft/debrettshouseo1901londuoft_bw.pdf |access-date=12 May 2009 }}

Biography

File:Armorial Bearings of the CLIVE (Clyve) family of Wormbridge and St. Devereux, Herefordshire.png

Percy Clive was the eldest son of Charles Meysey Bolton Clive of Whitfield, Herefordshire, by his marriage to Lady Katherine Feilding, daughter of William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant in 1891.{{Cite news|title=From The London Gazette, Tuesday, Nov. 3. |work=The Times |page=8 |date=4 November 1891}} He was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Herefordshire in December 1894,{{London Gazette|issue= 26577|date= 7 December 1894|pages=7199–7200|city= London}} and was attached to the Niger Field Force from 1897 to 1899 based in Lagos, rising to the rank of captain. In May 1899 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.{{Cite news|title=News in Brief |work=The Times |page=12 |date=10 May 1899}}

He was elected to the Commons as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ross division of Herefordshire in the "khaki election" of 1900,{{Cite book|last=Craig |first=F. W. S. |author-link= F. W. S. Craig |title=British parliamentary election results 1885–1918 |orig-year=1974 |edition= 2nd |year=1989 |publisher= Parliamentary Research Services |location=Chichester |isbn= 0-900178-27-2 |page=294}} while fighting in the Second Boer War. He did not return to England to take his seat until February 1902,{{Cite news|title=The War. Casualties, Deaths From Disease And Wounds. |work=The Times |page=10 |date=6 February 1902}} and in June that year was Private Secretary for Parliamentary purposes to Lord George Hamilton, Secretary of State for India.{{Cite newspaper The Times |date=3 June 1902 |page=9 |issue=36784}} In December 1903 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to E G Pretyman, Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty.{{Cite news|title=Court Circular |work=The Times |page=4 |date=29 December 1903}}

He was unseated at the 1906 general election, which saw the Liberal Party win a landslide victory. He returned to Parliament at a by-election in January 1908, and remained Ross's MP until his death. Following a merger of the Unionist parties in 1912 he became a Conservative.

He returned to the army in World War I and was wounded twice.{{Cite news|title=House of Commons Casualties: Captain Clive Wounded |work=The Times |page=9 |date=11 August 1915}} Clive was awarded the Legion of Honour, and the Croix de Guerre, and was twice Mentioned in Despatches.{{Cite news|title=Deaths |work=The Times |page=9 |date=18 April 1918}} As a lieutenant-colonel of the Grenadier Guards he was killed in action when attached to the 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, 5 April 1918 at Bucquoy. Memorial services were held on 17 April at St Margaret's, Westminster and Hereford Cathedral. He is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.{{cwgc|id=744850|name=Clive, Percy Archer|access-date=24 August 2016}} Clive is commemorated on Panel 8 of the Parliamentary War Memorial in Westminster Hall, one of 22 MPs that died during World War I to be named on that memorial.{{cite web|title=Recording Angel memorial Panel 8|publisher=UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk)|website=Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall|url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/cultural-collections/memorials/in-the-collection/world-war-i/wwi-angel-memorial/recording-angel-panel8/|access-date=31 August 2016}}{{cite web|title=List of names on the Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall|publisher=UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk)|website=Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall|url=http://www.parliament.uk/documents/War-Memorial-Lists/War-Memorial-Westminster-Hall-WW1.pdf|access-date=31 August 2016}} Clive is one of 19 MPs who fell in the war who are commemorated by heraldic shields in the Commons Chamber.{{cite web|title=Clive|publisher=UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk)|website=Heraldic shields to MPs, First World War|url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/cultural-collections/memorials/in-the-collection/world-war-i/wars-heraldic-shields/clive/|access-date=31 August 2016}} A further act of commemoration came with the unveiling in 1932 of a manuscript-style illuminated book of remembrance for the House of Commons, which includes a short biographical account of the life and death of Clive.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=House of Commons War Memorial: Final Volumes Unveiled by The Speaker|date=6 February 1932 |page=7|issue=46050}}{{cite book|editor-last=Moss-Blundell|editor-first=Edward Whitaker|title=The House of Commons Book of Remembrance 1914–1918|publisher=E. Mathews & Marrot|year=1931}}

His elder son Major Meysey George Dallas Clive (1907–1943) was killed with the Grenadier Guards in World War II in North Africa on 1 May 1943.{{cwgc|id=2104942|name=Clive, Meysey George Dallas|access-date=24 August 2016}} His younger son Lewis Clive (1910–1938) won a gold medal for rowing at the 1932 Olympics and was a member of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, killed in action in August 1938.

Some of his military papers were deposited in the King's College London archives in 1997 but his family retain others.{{cite web|url=http://www.kingscollections.org/catalogues/lhcma/collection/c/cl80-001|title=CLIVE, Capt Percy Archer (1873-1918)|publisher=King's College London|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001955/http://www.kingscollections.org/catalogues/lhcma/collection/c/cl80-001|archive-date=2016-03-04}}