Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'Claud was born on 13 April 1880, the son of Herbert Jeffery, solicitor, from Norfolk, and Bertha Greenwood Sugden, from Keighley. The family lived at 7 Oak Mount, Manningham. His mother died young aged 43 in 1896. He attended Bradford Grammar School from September 1893 until December 1897, but did not follow in his father’s profession. At 17, he proceeded to the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, where he was a “keen all round sportsman enjoying athletics, polo and steeple chasing”. Soon after the Second Boer War began, in December 1899 Jeffery volunteered and served with the Service Company of the Volunteer Battalion Yorkshire Regiment 1900-1902. In 1901, he was commissioned Second Lieutenant on Lord Kitchener's recommendation. When peace returned, Jeffery decided on a military life. Promotion to Lieutenant and Captain followed, and he served in India and South Africa. He was a keen horseman, shot and athlete, and early in 1914 he married Nellie, the widow of another officer. He had recently returned from two years with the Egyptian Army.
When war broke out in August 1914, the 2nd Yorkshire were in Guernsey. In early October,
they landed at Zeebrugge with 7th Division, to assist the Belgian withdrawal from Antwerp.
They then entrenched in front of Ypres where they faced intense pressure during the First
Battle of Ypres as the Germans tried to break through to the Channel Ports. Shortly before he died, almost alone Jeffery faced about a dozen Germans coming out of a wood and shot one after another. On 22nd, when in the line near Becelaere, he was told that the enemy was fifty yards away. Jeffery called his men to attack with fixed bayonets and led about twenty of them, sword in one hand, revolver in the other. As they reached the Germans he was shot in the groin: “I am wounded, carry on men, carry on”, he said. He was taken from the battlefield for treatment but died of his wounds in hospital in Ypres on the 24th. He was revered by his men: when wounded from the regiment were brought in the first question they asked was “How is Captain Jeffery?”. His grave is in Ypres town cemetery, Belgium. There is a memorial to him on his family plot in Undercliffe Cemetery, Bradford.'