Dickinson, Acting Sergeant Major Clesson John

Service highlights

  • Name: Clesson John Dickinson
  • Service number: 2265643
  • Rank: Acting Company Sergeant-Major (recorded as Company Sergeant Major in official memorial records)
  • Units: Canadian Engineers Signallers, then Instructional Staff with the 1st Depot Battalion, Eastern Ontario Regiment
  • Died: October 16, 1918, age 20
  • Burial: St. Mary’s Cemetery, Ontario, Sec. A. 303
  • Family: Son of John and Edith Dickinson of St. Mary’s, Ontario

A Life and Service Remembered

Clesson John Dickinson was a young man from the St. Marys area who balanced school and duty in a time that demanded both. He studied at St. Mary’s Collegiate and then Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where he was part of the Canadian Officers Training Contingent.

He enlisted in June 1917 with the Canadian Engineers Signallers, taking on the quiet, essential work of communications and training. By late 1917 he had been moved to Kingston as an instructor with the Eastern Ontario Depot Battalion, helping shape the men who would go forward. His rank progression reflects that responsibility, rising from sapper and private to sergeant and then sergeant-major before his death.

By 1918, the world was hit hard by a different enemy. The influenza pandemic came in waves, and the fall 1918 second wave in Canada was especially lethal, causing the vast majority of pandemic deaths. Clesson died on October 16, 1918 in Belleville during the influenza outbreak, with records linking his death to influenza and pneumonia. He rests at St. Mary’s Cemetery. He was commemorated at the cenotaphs in both St. Marys and Rannoch.

Major battles and operations

Clesson’s service is closely tied to the home front effort that kept the Canadian Corps moving: signals, depots, and training. His story is a reminder that military service and sacrifice did not only happen at the front.

Learn More

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/668891
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2756289/clesson-john-dickinson/
https://canadiangreatwarproject.com/person.php?pid=68331
https://archive.org/stream/universityoftoro00univ/universityoftoro00univ_djvu.txt
https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/grippe-espagnole-spanish-flu

The Fallen, by Richard Holt, 2265643 Acting Sergeant Major C. J. Dickinson, Pg 14