FREDERICK ARTHUR JEFFERY
Both his father and his grandfather were carpenters by trade, so it is not surprising that Frederick Arthur was initially apprenticed as a shipwright in the Dockyard. This though would all change once the Great War had broken out.
Frederick Arthur's grandfather Charles (b. 1838 in Christchurch) had married Caroline Roper (b. 1836 in Bishop's Waltham) in Portsmouth in 1861 but at the census that year they were recorded as living in Gosport. They had a large family of nine children, the middle one being Frederick who later became Frederick Arthur's father. Charles and Caroline moved their growing family to Portsmouth in time for the 1871 census when they were shown to be living at 11 South Brighton Street. Twenty years later the census records them living at 21 Montgomerie Road in Southsea.
Charles's son Frederick left home to marry his wife Fanny in 1891 and the year after they had their first child Frederick Arthur, probably at their own home at 156 Newcombe Road where three more children were born by 1901. In 1905 Frederick Arthur began two years attendance at the Secondary School on Victoria Road North in Southsea before securing the apprenticeship in H.M. Dockyard.
He was serving as a Shipwright at Portsmouth when the war broke out and presumably he could have continued to do so but perhaps that did not offer as much adventure as the young man wanted and on the 11th September, 1914, he enlisted voluntarily in the Royal Engineers. Subsequent to winning the efficiency medallion he was made a Rifle Instructor. In July, 1916, he was drafted to join the troops in France as one of their 284th A.T. Company. Promotion to the position of Bridging Corporal soon followed. For upward of a year he took part continuously and without mischance in action in the Ypres area, but on the 5th August, 1917, he was wounded with shrapnel steel in fourteen places on various parts of the body. As "a casualty" he was then removed to the Bath War Hospital. This was the beginning of prolonged suffering, for he survived an attack of bronchial pneumonia only to fall a victim to abscess on the liver and empyema. On 17th December, 1917, he passed away at the age of 25. His body was brought to Portsmouth and buried in the Milton Cemetery.
Further Information
The photograph above is taken from a memorial booklet published by Southern Grammar School from which extracts also appear above.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website lists Corporal Frederick Arthur Jeffery, (28653), Royal Engineers, date of death, 17/12/1917, age 25, buried at Milton Cemetery, Portsmouth (Grave Ref: F.1.28.).
Frederick Jeffery is also remembered on the Southern Grammar School WW1 Memorial and on the Cenotaph. He is not listed in the 'National Roll of the Great War'.