First black British Army officer David Clemetson honoured in First World War centenary

Millions around the world this year are reflecting on the lives that were changed irrevocably, and those that were lost in the centenary year marking the end of the First World War.

Some 65 million soldiers were mobilised across Europe during the First World War. Among them was Trinity College, Cambridge, student David Louis Clemetson. Current Cambridge student Sarah Lusack tells the story of Clemetson, who put a promising law career on hold to enlist, becoming one of the British Army’s only black officers. He was killed in action at the Somme 100 years ago today.

Clemetson’s life is commemorated in new exhibition Black Cantabs: History Makers, as his portrait joins 14 others to line the Royal Corridor of Cambridge University Library (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/whats/black-cantabs-history-makers). The show is curated by the Black Cantabs Research Project. To find out more about the University of Cambridge's black alumni and students: https://blackcantabs.herokuapp.com