Returning to Cameroon, 30th June 1916

Clarence Jamson of 36 Cedar Road, Nottingham, was granted a permit to return to West Africa on 30th June 1916. A trader in Cameroon before the war, he had been interned by the Germans following the outbreak of war and returned to England on 9th March 1916. He left for West Africa aboard the S.S. Mendi on 11th October 1916.

“BACK TO THE CAMEROONS.

“EXPERIENCES OF A NOTTINGHAM MAN.

“Clarence Jamson. the young Nottingham man who, on the outbreak of war was arrested along with other Englishmen in the German Cameroons, and kept a prisoner there for eighteen months, obtained the necessary permit from the Nottingham magistrates to-day [30th June 1916] to return to West Africa.

“Mr. Jamson had been in the Cameroons three years before the war, acting in a commercial capacity for a Liverpool firm, and was on the point of coming to England for a holiday when hostilities were declared. During his incarceration he underwent considerable hardships.” [1]

He returned the U.K. on 9th November 1919 and set himself up as a dairyman – being fined £3 on 8th November 1920 for selling watered milk – but died, aged just 29, on 9th March 1921 and was buried in Nottingham Church (Rock) Cemetery.

The Mendi sank after a collision in the Channel on 21st February 1917 with the R.M.S. Darro in thick fog. 616 South Africans were lost, 607 members of the South African Native Labour Corps.

[1] 'Nottingham Evening Post', 30th June 1916.

Image: http://www.histarmar.com.ar/ArchivoFotosGral-2/VaporesSACarrioin/114.JPG