Chailey 2017

My thanks to photographer, Mike Anton, for sending me these new shots of Chailey. It's good to see the memorial (below) with the signs of spring creeping through in the background.

The shot below takes in both the war memorial and St Peter's church, Chailey, whilst the penultimate shot in this short series shows the triptych inside the church which was unveiled, prematurely, in 1918. 

Seeing this great photo below reminds me that I need to visit Chailey again this year and re-acquaint myself with the village, the names on the memorial, and some of the sleepers in the churchyard. The last time I came here was in 2008 when my daughter was two years old and we were still living in India. 

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..

War memorial and St Peter's church

Another undated photograph of Chailey Green, and an interesting angle showing the church and war memorial. The house in between the two, no longer exists.

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.

Triptych, St Peter's Church, Chailey

My thanks to Mike Antonof Sussex for the splendid photo of the 1914-1918 triptych inside St Peter's Church, Chailey.

Fifty names appear on the triptych, one more than on the memorial outside on the village green. The additional name inside St Peter's is that of Lt Sigurd Harold Macculloch. The triptych was originally unveiled in 1918 whilst the war was still raging and I am at a loss to understand why Harold Macculloch's name was omitted when the war memorial was erected in 1920.