Clegg, Stanley Jacob

Stanley Jacob Clegg - HMAS Encounter Royal Australian Navy

Stanley Jacob Clegg was born in Melbourne Victoria on the 29th of December 1895 to Jacob and Margaret Clegg. He had several siblings, Lillian (1881), Walter (1883), Percy (1885), Francis (1886), Eveline (1888), Charlie (1891) and Wilfred (1893).

Their father Jacob died in 1895 and in 1902 Margaret remarried to John McKillop. The family then moved to Western Australia and took up residence at 92 East Street Fremantle.

On the 5th December 1914 Stanley enlisted into the Royal Australian Navy at Fremantle. He was passed as fit for service with the medical examiner recording Stanley's physical attributes as;

Height - 6 feet & 1/4 inches tall;

Hair - Fair;

Eyes - Blue;

Complexion - Fresh

Stanley did his initial training at HMAS Cerberus in Victoria from the 5th December 1914 to the 16th June 1915. His initial rank was as a Stoker 2nd class.

On the 17th June 1915 Stanley was posted to the ship HMAS Encounter and within a few months had been promoted to the rank of Stoker.

According to the Australian War Memorial; HMAS Encounter had been;

commissioned into the RAN on 1 July 1912. On 4 October 1913 she entered Sydney Harbour as part of the Australian Fleet Unit.

Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Encounter was part of the force which occupied German New Guinea. In the course of these operations she captured the steamer Zambezi on 12 August and, on 14 September, bombarded Toma Ridge to support the Australian Military and Naval Expeditionary Force. She covered the landing at Madang on 24 December.

In October, Encounter patrolled the Fiji-Samoa area, capturing the German schooner Elfrede. After a refit, she continued patrol duties in the Pacific, landing troops to protect the cable station on Fanning Island in July 1915. After grounding on a coral reef at Johnson Island, Encounter had to put-in at Hong Kong for repairs.

From January 1916, Encounter patrolled East Indies waters, returning to Australia the next month. She remained in Australian waters for the rest of the war. During this period she attended to the stricken Cumberland, which had struck a mine off Gabo Island on 6 July 1917, and searched the wreck of the raider Seeadler at Mopelia Island in September 1917.

After the war, Encounter served as training ship, and, from 1923, disarmed and renamed Penguin, as an accommodation vessel. In 1932 her hulk was scuttled off Bondi.

(photo of HMAS Encounter below)

On the 14th August 1918 Stanley was promoted to Leading Stoker and remained on the ship till the 14th May 1919.

He was then returned to HMAS Cerberus for several weeks and was then assigned to the Royal Australian Naval Reserve. Stanely was discharged from the Royal Australian Navy on the 1st January 1920.

While Stanley was still serving in 1918 he was able to get some leave during which time he married Isabelle May Waters in Albany. They then set up residence in Frederick Street North Fremantle. They had two children, Stanley George Donald in 1919 who unfortunately died shortly after birth and Donald Stanley George in 1920.

However it appears that the marriage was not a happy one as a divorce was granted in 1924. The Daily News had the following report;

A SEAMAN'S WIFE WOULD NOT GO ON THE LAND - HUSBAND TO REJOIN THE NAVY.

In January of 1918, when he was a member of the crew of H.M.A.S. Encounter, which vessel was engaged in patrolling the Australian coast and sometimes put into Albany for coaling, Stanley Clegg married. He left his wife at the southern port and allowed her £9 per month. Occasionally he saw her and once, when his ship visited Fremantle, Mrs. Clegg met her husband who complained to her that she was too familiar with other men while he was at sea. Mrs. Clegg said that she

failed to realise that there was any harm in her conduct. Later on Clegg was stationed at Melbourne, and at Sydney, and he lived in those cities with his wife. His term of service expiring, he came to Perth
with the object of taking up land, but his wife refused to be the wife of a farmer. He got a billet in the city, but his wife declined to live with him.
This morning Clegg, through Mr. F. Curran, petitioned the Chief Justice for a dissolution of his marriage. It was shown that Mrs. Clegg admitted her faults, and urged that she could not live with her husband.
Sir Robert McMillan granted a decree nisi, and made the order returnable in three months' time for the reason that it was shown that the petitioner proposed to rejoin the Navy at Sydney in about four months from now, and that he would probably leave Australia never to return.
 

In 1926 Stanley remarried in Fremantle to Grace Lily Crowe. They then moved over to New South Wales and took up residence in Cranbrook near Penrith. Stanley secured work as a Motor Driver.

It appears this marriage had dissolved as in 1928 they were in New Zealand and Stanley left Grace. In 1933 he married an Elvie Duffy in NSW

On the 12th November 1940 Stanley enlisted into the Second World War. He was assigned the regimental number N100395. He was initially assigned to the HQ of No.2 Salvage Depot. In 1941 he was promoted to Corporal and to Sergeant in 1943.

At the end of 1942 Stan and his unit had moved to Queensland and in early 1943 had arrived at Milne Bay in New Guinea. While serving in New Guinea in the first six months of 1943 he was hospitalised with jaundice and malaria.

By this stage he had reached the rank of Warrant Officer II. He had been serving with the 1st Australian Water Transport.

In June 1943 his health was seen to be getting worse and so he was returned to Townsville Queensland where he was admitted to the 2/14th Australian General Hospital.

On the 30th August 1943 Stan was medically discharged from the Australian Army.

Stan remained in NSW till the 1950's and then returned to Western Australia, taking up residence, firstly in North Perth where he worked at a local garage and then moved to Joondana.

Stanley Jacob Clegg died in Joondana WA on the 6th September 1980 aged 84.