More Jellicoe

Thanks to information received from New Zealand - via The Times newspaper - I've updated the pages for Thomas Jellicoe and his sons Christopher Jellicoe and Basil Jellicoe. My thanks to Robert Lowe for contacting me.

Reverend Thomas Harry Lee Jellicoe

Ian Seccombe of Chailey has sent me photographs of the last resting place of the Reverend Jellicoe, Rector of Chailey for thirty years (1894 - 1924) and the man who, did he but know it, has probably contributed more to the Chailey 1914-1918 website than anybody else. It was thanks to his diligence in recording the names of Chailey parishioners who served their King and Country during the First World War that enabled me to tell their stories on the website.

As Ian points out, the style of Reverend Jellicoe's memorial is almost identical to that of his son's - The Reverend Basil Jellicoe - who pre-deceased him and who is also buried in St Peter's churchyard. A detail of the inscription on Thomas Jellicoe's memorial is shown on his page on the Chailey 1914-1918 website..

John Basil Lee Jellicoe

Ian Seccombe of Chailey has kindly sent me photographs of the grave of John Basil Lee Jellicoe and his wife, Bethia Theodora, in St Peter's churchyard, Chailey. Basil, as he was known, served briefly in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) towards the end of the First World War, but it is his campaigning work in the slums of north London that he is - or certainly was - chiefly remembered for.
 

Like his father, he was a church of England clergyman, but he died at the young age of 36. His wife outlived him by a quarter of a century.

John BASIL Lee Jellicoe, RNVR

John Basil Lee Jellicoe was the eldest son of the Reverend Thomas Harry Lee Jellicoe of St Peter’s Church, Chailey and Bethia Theodora Jellicoe (nee Boyd).  His uncle, Arthur Hamilton Boyde OBE MC TD, who was also a clergyman in civil life, would have a distinguished career in the army during the First World War.

Basil Jellicoe was born on 5th February 1899.  He first gets a mention in Chailey Parish Magazine’s roll of honour in March 1917 where he is noted as Jellicoe, J B L, Univ OTC, Oxford.  By December 1917 he is noted as serving with the RNVR and in March 1918 is noted as assistant paymaster with the RNVR.  This information is then repeated monthly up to and including the final published roll call in July 1919. 

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) has this to say about Basil Jellicoe: 

 

Jellicoe, (John) Basil Lee (1899-1935), housing reformer and Church of England clergyman, was born on 5 February 1899 at Chailey, Sussex, the elder son of Thomas Harry Lee Jellicoe, rector of Chailey, and his wife, Bethia Theodora, youngest daughter of Sir John Boyd, of Maxpoffle, Roxburgh, lord provost of Edinburgh from 1888 to 1891. His father was a cousin of J. R. Jellicoe, first Earl Jellicoe.

A few months before the end of the First World War he left Oxford to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and served for a short time in the Mediterranean. 

 

In later life, he worked in Somers Town, north London, and campaigned tirelessly for better housing. He died prematurely, at the age of 36 in 1935 and is buried in St Peter's churchyard, Chailey. See photos of his grave here.

 

Basil's younger brother Christopher Theodore Jellicoe is also noted in Chailey’s Parish Magazine as serving his King and Country.