THE FORGOTTEN FALLEN
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HERBERT WILLIAM JEFFS Private 266164 2nd/1st Bucks Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry
Killed in Action aged 19 22nd August 1917
No Known Grave but commemorated on panel at Tyne Cot Memorial, Passchendaele, Belgium
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Herbert Jeffs' birth was registered in Aylesbury as Herbert William. He was baptised on 18th April 1898 in the Parish Church of St. Mary’s in Hardwick; however, his full names do not appear on the 1901 census when he is shown living at 9 Providence Place in Weedon with older sisters Ellen and Alice. His father was named John, an Agricultural Labourer born in Hardwick; his mother was born in Broughton; her maiden name was Elizabeth Fincher, and she had married John on 31st October 1887. They probably moved to Weedon shortly afterwards as the 1891 census shows them living there. Two of their children died when very young and another aged four just before the 1901 census. By 1911, Herbert William was a 13-year-old scholar. Herbert’s grandmother, Rachel had seven children and according to the Parish Registers remained a spinster. Divorce and remarriage were almost unheard of in those times and whether there was a permanent relationship with one individual or not is not known at this time. Rachel was the fifth child of six born to George and Mary who in turn was the son of John and Frances Watts, who married in 1790. John’s father was another John who died in 1806. Rachel’s brother, Daniel, moved to Weedon and lived in Ford Cottage, East End and Stockaway during the nineteenth century.
Tyne Cot Cemetery overlooks the battlefields of Passchendaele and is built around German blockhouses. Indeed, the central Cross of Remembrance is built on and around one of these. Its name was given by the men of the Northumberland Fusiliers (Tyne-siders). One of the pillboxes was an Advanced Dressing Station. It was captured by the 3rd Australians Division in October 1917, lost in April 1918 and recaptured five months later. There are 11,956 graves there and 8,637 are of unnamed soldiers. It is the largest number of burials of any war. The panels have inscribed the names of 33,783 men by their respective regiments who have no known grave. Herbert is listed on his Regiment’s panel but may be one of them buried there. |
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GO TO Forgotten Fallen list for more biographies of the men commemorated on the Weedon War Memorial.
