8th Battalion, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
Lionel Latchmore Jelf was born in Gloucester towards the end of 1899. According to the 1911 Census he was one of 12 children born to Walter Jelf (a fruit dealer) and his wife Catherine; two children had died prior to the census. The family lived at 2 Bearland Villas, Gloucester and the home appears to have been run as a boarding house, with Mrs Jelf as the manager. Interestingly on night the census was taken they had five guests, two actors and three actresses!
It would appear that Lionel lied about his age when enlisting in the Army. According to his Medal Index Card (MIC) at the National Archives he first went to France on 28 July 1915, when he would have been 15! According to the report of his funeral in the Gloucester Journal of 23 November 1918 he had joined the Army in January 1915 (enlistment was in Gloucester). The MIC states that originally he was a Driver with the Royal Field Artillery (number 64839), before he joined The Queens (Royal West Surrey Regiment). There is no mention of the service with the Royal Field Artillery in the Gloucester Journal report but it states that he ‘went through several engagements and was wounded in the last’. After being wounded he was sent to a Base Hospital (probably on the French coast) and then transferred to Colchester Military Hospital, Essex, where he died of his wounds on 14 November 1918, aged 19.
After a funeral with ‘semi-military honours’ he was laid to rest in Gloucester Old Cemetery, in the First World War plot, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave.
Researched by Graham Adams 17 April 2014