Name
Robert Salisbury Jeffcock
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
01/07/1916
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
South Staffordshire Regiment
1st/6th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 7b
France
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Harpenden Town Memorial, Church of St Nicholas Memorial, Harpenden
Pre War
Robert Salisbury was born in Wolverhampton in 1877 to John Thomas Jeffcock, a clerk in Holy Orders, and Alicia Ann (nee Everard).
Robert was educated at Shrewsbury College leaving in 1894.
On the 1901 Census he was boarding in Newlyn, Cornwall admitting no occupation but living on his own means. He was to become an artist specialising in miniatures. He married in 1904 to Marguerite Ann Loutz and they had a daughter Joan Marguerite in 1906. The family lived in Rothamsted Avenue, and later in Station Road, Harpenden.
Wartime Service
Robert volunteered for the London Regiment, 28th Battalion (Artists Rifles) as Private 2908 in Nov 1914.
He went to France on 14 Feb 1915. He gained his commission as 2nd Lieutenant on 30 May 1915, (Artists Rifles managed Officer Training Corps at Bailleul near Ypres) and was posted to 1st/6th South Staffs Regiment. The 46 (North Midland) Division, of which South Staffs were a unit, were ordered to Egypt in Dec 1915 but after arriving on 13 Jan 1916 that order was countermanded and they were deployed to the Somme, France.
The Division were involved in the diversionary attack at Gommecourt on 1 July 1916 taking heavy casualties including Robert. His remains were not recovered and he is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.
Additional Information
Probate of £7347 17s 5d granted to his widow, who also received gratuity of £46 13s 4d and allowance of £27 per annum in respect of daughter.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Jonty Wild, Mary Skinner, Harpenden & District Local History Society (www.harpenden-history.org.uk)
