Charles Gordon JELF (1886–1915)
Charles Gordon Jelf (aways known as Gordon) was born in Rochester, Kent on 8 June 1886.
His father was George Edward Jelf (born in Berlin as a British subject on 29 January 1834) and his paternal grandfather was Richard William Jelf, D.D., who had been the Principal of King’s College, London from 1844 to 1868.
His mother was Katharine Frances Dalton, who was born at Lambeth Rectory in 1850 and baptised at St Mary's Church there on 6 January 1851 by her own father, the Revd. Charles Browne Dalton.
Gordon’s father George Edward Jelf had married his first wife, Fanny Crawley, in the chapelry of St Michael at Highgate on 27 April 1861, and they had two sets of twins:
- Mary Agnes Jelf (TWIN: born at Clapton on 18 January 1862 and baptised at St John's Church, Hackney by her grandfather on 16 February 1862); died aged eight
- Edith Louise Jelf (TWIN: born at Clapton on 18 January 1862 and baptised at St John's Church, Hackney by her grandfather on 16 February 1862); died aged eight
- Fanny Jelf (TWIN: born at Clapton and baptised at St James the Great Church, Hackney on 18 April 1865; died shortly after birth)
- George Edward Jelf (TWIN: born at Clapton and baptised at St James the Great Church, Hackney on 18 April 1865).
Fanny Jelf, the first wife of Gordon's father, died at Clapton at the age of 26 and was buried in St James's Cemetery, St Pancras on 19 April 1865.
Gordon's father George Edward Jelf was a widower for nine years, and from 1869 to 1874 served as the first Vicar of Blackmoor (near Selbourne) in Hampshire. His twin daughters Mary Agnes Jelf and Edith Louise Jelf both died of scarlet fever at the age of eight near the beginning of 1871, and the census that year shows him living at Blackmoor Vicarage with his sister-in-law Miss Caroline Crawley (42) and his only surviving child George (6), plus six servants.
On 20 January 1876 in the Chapelry of St Michael, Highgate, George Edward Jelf (41) married his second wife, Gordon's mother Katharine Frances Dalton (25). They had seven children:
- Arthur Selbourne Jelf (born in Saffron Walden, Essex on 10 October 1876)
- Dorothy Frances Emmy Jelf (born in Saffron Walden, Essex in 1878 and baptised there on 31 August
- Frederica Mary Jelf (born in Saffron Walden, Essex on 22 March 1881 and baptised there on 22 April)
- Inez Katherine Jelf (born in Saffron Walden, Essex in 1882 and baptised there on 4 October)
- Philip Wordsworth Montgomery Jelf (born in Rochester, Kent on 1 November 1884)
- Charles Gordon Jelf (born in Rochester, Kent on 8 June 1886)
- Meriel Edith Jelf (born in Rochester, Kent in 1890, registered second quarter, wrongly transcribed as Muriel).
Gordon’s father, the Revd George Edward Jelf, D.D., was Canon Residentiary of Rochester from 1880 to 1907. He was also Vicar of Saffron Walden from 1874 to 1882, and at the time of the 1881 census he was living in the vicarage there with his wife and their first three children (plus four domestic servants, and a monthly nurse to help with the youngest child, who was newborn). His only surviving child from his first marriage, George Edward Jelf, was boarding at Haileybury School at the time of the census.
From 1883 to 1889 Gordon’s father was Rector of Chatham.
At the time of the 1891 census all seven children (including Gordon, aged four) were at home with their parents in the precincts of Rochester Cathedral. Gordon’s widowed grandfather, Charles B. Dalton, the Prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral, was living with them, and they had five servants (a nurse, cook, housemaid, nursemaid, and a page).
From 1896 to 1897 Gordon’s father was Rector of Wiggonholt, and from 1897 to 1904 the incumbent of St Germans, Blackheath.
Gordon attended Felsted Preparatory School and then The Grange in Folkestone, before going up to Marlborough College. At the time of the 1901 census, when he was 14, he was boarding at Marlborough College, while his older brother Philip (16) was at Haileybury. His parents and sisters (plus four servants) were now living in London at 9 St German’s Place, Charlton & Kidbrooke.
Gordon won an open scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford in 1905 and gained his BA degree in 1909 with a Second Class in both Moderations and Literae Humaniores.
Gordon's father was latterly Canon of Rochester, and in 1907 he was appointed Master of the London Charterhouse in Smithfield.
On 21 June 1907 at Rochester Cathedral, Gordon's sister Frederica Mary Jelf married Hugh Douglas C. Grace.
Gordon’s father George Edward Jelf died on 19 November 1908 at the age of 74 at the Master's House at the London Charterhouse. He was buried at Highgate Cemetery.
In 1909 Gordon was attached to the Department of Antiquities in Egypt for seven months, and the next year was appointed an Assistant Master of Classics at Fonthill School, a private preparatory school for boys in East Grinstead. He was living on his own at Saint Hill, East Grinstead at the time of the 1911 census, aged 24.
In about 1909 Gordon’s widowed mother came to live at 34 Norham Road, Oxford, where she can be seen in the 1911 census with her three unmarried daughters Dorothy (32), Inez (28), and Meriel (20). They now had only three servants (a housemaid, cook, and parlourmaid).
On 20 April 1911 at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, Gordon's sister Inez Katherine Jelf married Edward Monier Bickersteth, who had been an undergraduate at Christ Church in 1901–4 and was now the Vicar of Leeds..
In August 1911, after a few months’ study of German, Gordon joined the staff of The Times, and was assistant correspondent in Berlin until the outbreak of war. (His family had German relations: his grandfather Dr R. W. Jelf, who had been tutor to George, the future King of Hanover, had married Countess Emmy Schlippenbach at Kew in 1830.)
In about 1913 Mrs Jelf moved to 80 Woodstock Road in St Margaret’s parish.
Gordon Jelf volunteered to serve very near the beginning of the First World War, commencing service on 27 October 1914. He spent nine weeks in the Public Schools Battalion of Royal Fusiliers, and then applied for a commission to a Kentish Regiment. His letters show how keen he was to fight: one on 21 May 1915 to his mother stated, “It has been definitely decided now that I am to go over the top with the Battalion, and I was overjoyed when W. told me the great news. Indeed, I wouldn’t be out of it for worlds.”
In the first World War (Charles) Gordon Jelf served as a Second Lieutenant in the 6th Battalion of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment).
Jelf was killed in action near Loos (between Vermelles and Hulloch) at the age of 29 on 13 October 1915. He is buried at the Vermelles British Cemetery (I.E.12).
He was mentioned in despatches by General Sir Douglas Haig.
Right: Photograph of C. G. Jelf’s grave in France, kindly supplied by British War Graves. The text reads:
[Emblem of the Buffs]
SECOND LIEUTENANT
C. G. JELF
E. KENT REGT. THE BUFFS
13TH OCTOBER 1915
†
IN THE LIGHT
SHALL WE SEE LIGHT
This is one of the 40% of war graves that bears a personal message at the end (for which the family had to pay 3½d per letter).
Jelf is remembered in at least five places in addition to the war memorial outside St Margaret’s Church in north Oxford.
He is on the Felsted School Roll of Honour (right); on the Roll of honour within the Memorial Hall at Marlborough College; on a memorial plaque in Rochester Cathedral; on The Times memorial (now lost); and on a brass plaque in Exeter College (below):
The following short obituary appeared in The Times on 19 October 1915:
MR. CHARLES GORDON JELF.
We deeply regret to record the death in action of another member of the editorial staff of The Times, Second Lieutenant Charles Gordon Jelf, of the 6th East Kent Regiment (The Buffs).
Mr Jelf, who fell on October 13, was the youngest son of the Rev. Dr. Jelf, late Master of the Charterhouse, and of Mrs Jelf, Bushley, Oxford, and was 29 years of age. He was educated at Marlborough and at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was a scholar, and took his degree in 1909. Before the war he was assistant correspondent of The Times in Berlin.
The following comment was added in The Times of 26 October 1915:
SECOND LIEUTENANT JELF.
Lady Teynham, whose husband commands a company of the 6th East Kent Regiment, writes of the late Second Lieutenant Jelf:— “I am sure you will like to know how much Lord Teynham appreciated him. Several times in his letters he has said that he has been much helped by having two splendid subalterns, of whom Mr. Jelf was one. In my husband’s last letter received a few days ago, he writes, “I have lost a very dear young subaltern, who was killed by my side.”
Gordon Jelf’s letters from France were privately published as a book soon after his death. On 10 August 1915 he wrote:
Dear old England! she will be better and stronger than ever, the good old land. We must pay our price – we here in lives and wounds – and you all, I’m afraid, in sorrow and straitened means. But we are only temporary tenants of England – just one generation, holding her for the next hundred years, or more, and earning the gratitude of our grandchildren and their families’ families. As Kipling said – ‘Who dies if England live?’ We can’t be English without paying coin for it, can we?
And on 11 October 1915, two days before his death:
The shelling is now absolutely continuous; but the trenches here are splendid against it, and all day south of us there have been tremendous bombardments. The bombardment inflicted on us which I mentioned is said by the artillery to have been the worst the Germans have yet given the British. If that is the case, we don’t mind a bit, therefore so much for that.
The Colonel of his regiment wrote that he had “times without number proved himself absolutely fearless, and it was in a most magnificent attack that he was killed”, and a brother officer that “he met his death in a fine way, showing an especial example of bravery to his men in an exceptionally trying moment”.
Administration (with Will) was granted in London to Gordon’s widowed mother, Katharine Frances Jelf, on 5 February 1916. He left £136 8s. 4d.
On 2 December 1916 Gordon's sister Meriel Edith Jelf married Captain Ralph Chevenix-Trench of the Royal Engineers at St Margaret’s Church.
After the War
Gordon’s widowed mother
- Mrs Katharine Frances Jelf moved away from 80 Woodstock Road very soon after her son’s death in 1915 and initially lived at Squerryes Lodge, Westerham, near Sevenoaks, Kent. By the time of the 1921 census she was living at Shootfield, Sundridge, Kent with her unmarried daughter Dorothy (42) and her grandchildren Katharine, Christopher, and Hector Jelf, plus five servants. She after the war. She died at 28 Granville Road, Sevenoaks at the age of 83 on 22 December 1933. Her effects came to £6,390 2s. 9d., and her executors were unmarried daughter Dorothy Jelf, her son-in-law the Edward Monier Bickersteth, and the stockjobber Hugh Grace.
Gordon’s four sisters
- Dorothy Frances Emmy Jelf (born 1878) never married. She died at St John's Home, St Mary's Road, Oxford on 14 February 1970.
- Frederica Mary Grace, née Jelf (born 1881) was living at 7 Granville Road, Sevenoaks, Kent at the time of the 1911 census with her husband Hugh Douglas C. Grace (39), who was a dealer in stocks & shares, and their son Oliver Jelf Grace (1), plus three servants. By 1921 they were living at Mill Meadow, Brasted, near Sevenoaks with one servant. and Oliver (12) was boarding at Hurst Court School in Hastings. At the time of the 1939 Register Frederica and her husband were living at Charles Oak, Sevenoaks and employed only a cook. Hugh died in 1952 at the age of 80 and Frederica on 15 May 1958 at the age of 77.
- Inez Katharine Bickersteth, née Jelf (born 1882) and her husband Edward Monier Bickersteth had four children: Ella (1912), Edward (1915), Mary (1917/18), and John (1921). Her youngest son John Monier Bickersteth (1921–1986) became the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Inez died at Chiddingstone Rectory, Edenbridge, Kent on 2 December 1936 and her husband at Ivy House, Worton, Devizes on 24 July 1976.
(The Bickersteth papers are in the Bodleian Library.) - Meriel Edith Chevenix-Trench, née Jelf (born 1890) and her husband Ralph Chevenix-Trench had three children: John (1920), Maxwell (1921), and Susan (1925). She died at Wolfeton Manor, Charminster, Dorchester, Dorset on 24 January 1985 and her effects came to £64,169.
Gordon’s two brothers
- Philip Wordsworth Montgomery Jelf (born 1884) married Dorothy Catherine Mary Hudson on 18 August 1920 at St Matthias's Church in Earls Court, and they had a daughter Una Jelf (later Mrs Crowley). Philip served for thirty years in the Colonial Civil Service in Northern Rhodesia. He died in Devon on 19 October 1960, and his widow died in Dorset on 12 March 1982..
- Arthur Selbourne Jelf (born 1876) served in the Malayan Civil Service from 1899 to 1925, and was seconded to London for Military Service (Intelligence) from 1917 to 1919. He married Blanche Connell at St George’s, Hanover Square in the first quarter of 1908. They had four children: Arthur (1909–1958), Katherine (Kitty) (1910–1996), Christopher (1912–1937), and Hector Gordon Jelf (1917–1997). (Hector was born on 6 May 1917 and baptised at St Margaret’s Church in Oxford on 20 June 1917): their address was then given in the register as Perak, Federated Malay States.) Arthur's wife Blanche died at the age of 38 in November 1917, and in 1923 Arthur married his second wife Evelyn Mary Hardcastle, who accompanied him back to Singapore, where they stayed until 1925. Arthur was then appointed as the Colonial Secretary to Jamaica, where they lived until he retired in 1935. Arthur Jelf was knighted in 1932, and served as Mayor of Hythe for 1938/9. He died on 26 February 1947. See his entry in Who Was Who.
See also
- CWGC: JELF, Charles Gordon
- Entry for Charles Gordon Jelf on De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour
- Who Was Who: entry on Gordon’s father, JELF, Rev. George Edward, DD
- Charles Gordon Jelf, Charles Gordon Jelf: Letters, with an introduction and a portrait (1915). It is out of print (see current Amazon status), but is available in the Bodleian Library and the British Library
- Wikipedia: Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)
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