Montizambert, Private Clement Trevor

Service highlights

  • Service Number: 435496
  • Born: 23 November 1890 in St. Marys.
  • Education and early service: Graduated from St. Marys Collegiate, attended University of Toronto, and served with the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada.
  • Enlisted: 8 July 1915 in Calgary with the 50th Canadian Infantry Battalion.
  • Sailed overseas: 26 July 1915 with a draft of reinforcements.
  • Posted to the front: 20 January 1916 to A Company, 10th Canadian Infantry Battalion, then serving south of Ypres.
  • Killed in action: Morning of 3 June 1916, while on duty in a reserve trench south east of Zillebeke, “instantly killed by an enemy shell.”
  • Burial: Perth Cemetery (China Wall). His headstone bears an epitaph chosen by his father: “God’s will be done.”
  • Family: Son of William C. and Ella Montizambert. One sister, Dorothy Helen, later joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a nurse on 23 February 1918.
  • Commemorated: On the cenotaph in St. Marys and in St. James Anglican Church.

A Life and Service Remembered

Clement Trevor Montizambert, known as Trevor, grew up in St. Marys in a family that was well known around town. His father worked at the local branch of the Bank of Montreal, and the Montizamberts were remembered as sociable and active in the community. When his father’s work took the family east, Trevor stayed behind long enough to finish school, then went on to the University of Toronto, balancing his studies with time in a local militia unit.

Before the war, he headed west to Alberta with a practical, hopeful plan to become a rancher. When the war came, he enlisted in Calgary in July 1915. He did not linger in Canada. Within weeks he was on a ship to England, moving through reserve battalions and training camps, then forward to the 10th Battalion in early 1916.

By June 1916, the 10th Battalion was pulled into bitter fighting south of Ypres at Mount Sorrel and Armagh Wood. In that confusion, Trevor was killed on the morning of 3 June, struck by an enemy shell while on duty in a reserve trench southeast of Zillebeke. He was 25.

He was first buried near where he fell. In 1919, a battlefield clearance team found his grave, the original cross still intact, and he was reinterred at Perth Cemetery (China Wall). The words chosen for his headstone, “God’s will be done,” carry the quiet weight of a family trying to make sense of a sudden loss. Back in St. Marys, his name remains where neighbours can still see it, on the cenotaph and in St. James Anglican Church.

Major battles and operations

  • Service in England (1915 to 1916): Reserve battalions and infantry training after arriving overseas in July 1915.
  • Ypres sector (early 1916): Posted to A Company, 10th Canadian Infantry Battalion, holding the line south of Ypres.
  • Mount Sorrel and Armagh Wood (2 to 4 June 1916): Killed during the fighting near Zillebeke in the Ypres Salient.

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