Clyde Fairbanks Maxwell

Clyde Fairbanks Maxwell was born at North Hampton, Massachusetts on 11 April 1892. His father, Walter Maxwell (1851–1934), was an Englishman who had studied science in London and Zurich before taking a Masters degree at Harvard in 1889 and then teaching physiological chemistry at the Harvard Summer School. His mother was Annie Weber (1863–1895), born in Vermont. Walter Maxwell became an expert in sugar production, working in Nebraska and New Orleans before moving to Hawaii in 1895 where he became the first Director of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Experiment and where Annie Maxwell died. In 1900, Walter Maxwell moved with his sons, Marcuswell and Clyde, to Queensland to become Director of the Sugar Experiment Stations in that colony.

Clyde Maxwell was educated at the Church of England Grammar School in Sydney and at the Armidale School. He attended the University of Sydney in 1909. The following year, his father resigned his position in Australia and returned to the United States where Clyde was enrolled in the Harvard class of 1914. Soon after graduation, he travelled to England (September 1914) and enlisted in the British Army. He was made a Lieutenant but, for health reasons, did not join his regiment in France until June 1916. He died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 3, 1916 although his death was not confirmed for nine months.

A letter to Harvard from his father recounted how his family learnt about his end: “Young officers when going into action frequently placed in the most convenient pocket of their uniform an open, but addressed envelope containing a blank sheet of paper, with an attached pencil. It appears that Lieutenant Maxwell had made this provision as a closed letter was found in, or near, the German trench which his platoon had taken. The letter was forwarded to the address in England that the envelope bore. It was received by a young girl friend of Lieutenant Maxwell. He had not been able to do more than take the letter out of his uniform and close it — with blood. The enclosed sheet was blank.”

Clyde Fairbanks Maxwell has no known grave. His name appears on the Theipval Memorial in France and in Harvard Memorial Church.