Lance-Corporal CECIL SHEFFERD
Grangemont, 94, Fairfield Road, Winchester
Service numbers 4/1660 and 200107, 1/4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment
Died in Turkish captivity, Mesopotamia, 4 September 1916
Life Summary
Lance-Corporal Cecil Shefferd
Cecil Shefferd was born on 22 January 1893 in the splendid surroundings of Northington Grange, near Alresford, where his father worked at as a valet. Cecil’s parents later moved to Winchester and here he excelled as a scholar before becoming a clerk with Hampshire County Council. A pre-war Territorial soldier with the 4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment, Cecil Shefferd served in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and was taken prisoner by the Turks following the fall of the British garrison at Kut-al-Amara. He died in captivity a few months later.
Family Background
Cecil’s father, Thomas Shefferd, was born in Itchen Stoke, near Alresford, on 21 June 1860. He was one of nine children. Thomas’s parents had also been born in Itchen Stoke. His father, Charles Shefferd (1837-1905), worked as an agricultural labourer. His mother, Hannah (née Smith, 1837-1882) was the daughter of an agricultural labourer. Thomas, however, clearly decided that working on the land was not for him because in 1881 he was working as a footman for 94-year-old Anne Penelope Hoare (believed to be related to Sir Samuel Hoare, Home Secretary in Neville Chamberlain’s government between 1939 and 1939) at her home in St James’s Square, Pall Mall, London.
Cecil’s mother was born Jane Marchant in the village of Handcross, near Crawley, Sussex, in 1861. Like Thomas, she came from a large family and had six siblings. Her father, Henry, was born in 1834 in Slaugham, Sussex, and worked as a brickmaker. Her mother was born in Brighton in 1837. In 1881 Jane was working as a schoolroom maid, one of six servants employed by GP John Lucas Worship and his wife Clara at their home, The Manor House in Sevenoaks, Kent.
Thomas and Jane married at St Matthew’s Church, Redhill, Surrey, on 29 October 1891. Thomas’s occupation on the marriage certificate is given as valet in Northington. A house had existed on the site of Northington Grange since the 17th Century, but in 1804 the four-storey red-brick property was transformed into a neoclassical Ancient Greek temple under the direction of architect William Wilkins. Further additions and alterations were made in the 1850s which proved to be a halcyon period. The owner, William Baring, 2nd Lord Ashburton, served in the government of Sir Robert Peel. His wife Harriet, a witty and sophisticated hostess, threw sumptuous parties at Northington Grange attended by Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson and other society figures.
By the time Thomas Shefferd arrived to work at the house – probably in the late 1880s – it had passed to Francis Barring, the 5th Lord Ashburton, who converted the orangery into a picture gallery to accommodate his paintings. Today the Grange is home to an internationally acclaimed opera company.
Cecil Shefferd’s father Thomas
Cecil Shefferd’s mother Jane
Northington Grange in around 1870. Cecil was born in the house on 22 January
1893 when his father was working there as a valet
The Shefferds must have left the Grange shortly after Cecil’s birth in 1893, because in 1895 Jane gave birth to a second son, Ronald, in Winchester. Two more sons, Charles and George, were also born in the city, in 1898 and 1900 respectively, and a daughter, Madeline Alfreda, in 1901.
By 1899, Thomas Shefferd was running The Old Red Deer public house at 92, Lower Stockbridge Road, Winchester (on the corner with Elm Road), which doubled as the family home. A few hundred yards away, on the corner of Lower Stockbridge Road and Andover Road, his brother William was publican of The Albion. The Old Red Deer closed in 1983 but the building survives with Winchester Travel Health on the corner and Fulflood Gallery & Framing next door. The Albion is still in business.
Cecil attended Western Infants School in Elm Road, Fulflood, before moving on to St Thomas Church of England Boys’ School on 17 April 1899. He was clearly a good scholar because on 15 September 1905 he was admitted to Peter Symonds Boys School where he spent the next three years. His fees were paid by Hampshire County Council. Cecil also appears to have enjoyed amateur dramatics; a report in the Hampshire Chronicle of 19 October 1909 describes his portrayal of Mrs Homespun in a farce called ‘Cherry Bounce’, put on by boys of St Paul’s Bible Class.
Cecil left Peter Symonds School on 7 April 1909 to help his father run The Old Red Deer. By 1911, however, Thomas had sold the business and the family had moved a short distance to Grangemont, 94, Fairfield Road, Winchester. The Census of that year shows Cecil working as a clerk for the County Council and his brother Ronald as a grocer’s assistant. Oddly, Thomas is not mentioned on the census document, so his occupation is unknown. His name does, however, appear in the 1911 Warren’s Directory and places him at 94, Fairfield Road.
Great War Record
Cecil’s Army service number 4/1660 indicates that he enlisted as a Territorial soldier with the 4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment before the Great War. Although a part-time soldier, Cecil would have received basic military training, particularly during the battalion’s annual two-week summer camp.
When war broke out in August 1914 Cecil volunteered for service overseas. In October he sailed for India with the newly-formed 1/4th Hampshires. In March 1915, the battalion was sent to Mesopotamia and Cecil entered a theatre of war there on the 18th.
94, Fairfield Road, Winchester, which in 1914 was known
as Grangemont. It was from here that Cecil Shefferd departed
to go to war in October 1914
Cecil fought with the 1/4th Hampshires against the Ottoman Turks throughout 1915 and was wounded twice. In December he was among the contingent of Hampshire soldiers trapped by the Turks in the British garrison at Kut-al-Amara. (For details of the 1/4th Hampshires’ actions in Mesopotamia in 1915 and the siege of Kut see Kut.) Cecil became a prisoner of war when the garrison surrendered on 29 April 1916 and he was marched off into captivity. He eventually reached the Yarbaschi PoW camp in the Amanus Mountains where prisoners were set to work on constructing the Baghdad railway. Cecil could only have been at the camp a short time because on 4 September he died, probably from disease. He was 23 years old.
Among the prisoners at Yarbaschi was Company Quarter Master Sergeant Andrew Bogie, also of the 1/4th Hampshires, who lived in St Paul’s Terrace, Fulflood, a short distance from the Shefferd family. Andrew survived Cecil by less than three weeks, dying on 22 September 1916. It took several months for news of Cecil’s death to reach his parents back in Winchester. The Hampshire Regimental Journal of April 1917 records:
SHEFFERD - Lance-Corporal C. Shefferd, Hampshire Regiment, taken prisoner at Kut, died in the hands of the Turks, date and place not known, aged 24, the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Shefferd, Grangemont, Fairfield Road, Winchester.
Lce-Corpl. Cecil Shefferd, Hampshire Regt, who was taken prisoner at Kut, has died as a prisoner of war in the hands of the Turks, aged 24. Official notification of the sad fact was received last month. Lce.-Corpl. Cecil Shefferd was a son of Mr and Mrs T. Shefferd, of Grangemont, Fairfield Road, Winchester for whom much sympathy will be felt. Before joining the Forces, Lce.-Corpl. Shefferd was at the County Council Offices.
Family after the Great War
The UK Army Registers of Soldiers Effects, 1901-29 shows that £21 7s 5d was paid to Cecil’s father Thomas on 12 July 1917, presumably in respect of his effects and back pay. Thomas received a £9 10s war gratuity in September 1919.
Cecil’s three brothers also fought in the Great War. Charles served in Mesopotamia as a sapper (he would have been too young to have gone off to war with Cecil) before transferring to the Royal Engineers where he was promoted to Sergeant. George and Ronald both served in France, with the Hampshire Regiment and the Royal Army Medical Corps respectively. All three survived the war. The four brothers are listed in the Winchester War Service Register.
Thomas and Jane Shefferd continued to live at Grangemont after the war. Thomas died in Winchester on 14 March 1927, aged 66. Probate records show he left £862 1s 9d to his wife. Jane passed away in Winchester on 10 February 1936 at the age of 75. She left £1878 16s 7d in her will.
George Shefferd married Edith Tilling (1902-1946) and the couple had a son, Maurice (1926-1976). George was living at 9, Walton Place, Winchester, when he died in 1946, aged 47. He is buried at Magdalen Hill Cemetery.
Cecil’s sister Madeline married Edwin Tilbury (1900-1962) in Winchester in 1923. The couple had two children, Joan, (1924-2010), who was born in Easton, near Winchester, and George (1926-2006). Madeline died in Winchester in December 1973 at the age of 72, and Edwin in September 1962.
Charles Shefferd married Kate Kelsey in Winchester in 1924 and the couple had a son, Ronald (1925-1987). Kate passed away in Winchester in March 1974, aged 78. Charles, who worked for the Post Office, also died in Winchester, on 9 September 1981, aged 84.
Ronald Shefferd married Melinda Hollis (1880-1970) in Dartford, Kent, in 1920. Three years later, Melinda gave birth to a son, poignantly named Cecil. He was to be the couple’s only child. Ronald died in 1961, aged 66.
Medals and Memorials for Cecil Shefferd
Lance-Corporal Cecil Shefferd was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. (A Great War Memorial Plaque to Cecil Shefferd, with supporting paper confirming his date of death, was sold for £80 by Dreweatt’s of Bloomsbury on 28 September 2012.) After the war Cecil’s body was disinterred and reburied in Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq (GR. XXI. T. 23). He is mentioned on the memorials at St Matthew’s and St Paul’s churches, Winchester, as well as those at Peter Symonds School and the Hampshire County Council offices in Winchester. Cecil’s name also appears on the St Thomas School memorial, which is today held by Kings School, Winchester.