Person

By 1917, people across the world were aware of the horrors taking place on the battlefields of Europe. So, why would a married man of 35 volunteer to leave behind his wife and five children and travel to the other side of the world to join in the fighting? To many of us today, it is hard to understand, and yet this is exactly what David Andrew Jeffrey did in 1917.

David was born in 1882 in Fencehouses. He was the second son of David Jeffrey (b1840 in Bells Close, Northumberland) and Mary Anne Jeffrey, nee Reay (1844-1911) from Seghill, Northumberland. With only one brother 12 years older than him, David must have grown up virtually as an only child. By 1891, the family had moved to Elswick in Northumberland where David senior was working as a slinger/crane driver in the steel works which grew up along the Tyne. In due course, David junior would also go to work in the steel works; first as a “setter”, but eventually becoming a crane driver like his father, an occupation which would eventually take him to Australia to work.

David settled in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray, Victoria, where he was joined on 4 January 1908, by his wife, Isabella Wintrop Bell, and their two young sons, Stanley and Herbert. A further three children had been born in Australia by the time David enlisted in 1917.

By July of 1918, David’s battalion had been sent into the attack at Hamel on the Western Front. From July until October the men were involved in a series of attacks and then, severely depleted, the battalion was sent to the rear for rest. On 24 October, David was made lance corporal and on 11 November, even as the armistice was being signed, he was being admitted to hospital in Abbeville, suffering with a large carbuncle on his neck.

David spent December in hospital in England and, on 3 January 1919, was granted two weeks’ furlough in England, with instructions to report back to No 1 Command on 17 January. But with the war over and soldiers returning to Australia, David clearly felt there was little need to rush back to army barracks. He failed to return at all and, on 26 February, he was declared an illegal absentee at a Court of Inquiry held in London. David remained on the run until he finally gave himself up on 29 April.

At a Court Martial held in Warwick Square, London, on 8 June, David was sentenced to 120 days’ imprisonment. A week later, he arrived at the Lewes Detention Barracks where he was to serve his sentence. However, it was a pointless gesture by the Army and on 18 June, David’s sentence was quietly suspended and he was released from prison.

David returned to Australia on the “Norman” on 4 July, being finally discharged from the army on 15 October 1919. He died just two years later in 1921 in Footscray, Victoria.

Civil Parish: Morton Grange

Birth date: 1882

Death date: 1921

Armed force/civilian: Army

Residence: 39 Juliet Street, Elswick, Northumberland (ecclesiastical parish of Benwell St Aidan’s 1891 census)
6 St George’s Terrace, Bells Close (civil parish of West Denton, ecclesiastical parish of Sugley 1901 census)
60 Walter Street, Footscray, Victoria (1912-21 Australian Electoral Rolls)

Employment: Steel worker, crane driver

Family: Parents: David Jeffrey, Mary Anne Jeffrey (nee Reay 1844-1911)
Sibling: John Jeffrey (b1870)
Wife: Isabella Wintrop Jeffrey (nee Bell b 07-1882 in South Shields)
Children: Stanley Jeffrey (b 1900), Herbert Andrew Jeffrey (b 1904), Lorna Victoria Jeffrey (b 1910),
Robert Martin Jeffrey (1915-1962) plus one other child

Military service:

Service Number 6875
Private
23rd Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
Lance Corporal 24-Oct-1918, court martialled 08-May-1919, discharged from army 15-Oct-1919

Medal(s): British War Medal
Victory Medal

Gender: Male

Contributed by Kelloe Visitor, Trimdon Station