Dawlish World War One Project

The Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects shows that Percy Jackman enlisted at Dawlish on the 24th April, 1906, just after his 20th birthday.

The 3rd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards was part of the British Expeditionery Force (BEF) that was moved to France and Belgium on the German invasion of that country at the outbreak of war in August 1914. After initial engagements the Germans launched attacks in an effort to wipe out the BEF which withdrew from Mons in late August. They held at the battle of the Aisne and at Soupir on 14th September the dead included Private Percy J Jackman.

Percy James Jackman was the fourth child of James and Sarah Ann Jackman. James was born in Sandford, near Crediton, and was the son of John Jackman (1832-1906) and Maria Southcott (1833-1877).

James Jackman married Sarah Ann Perry in the July-Sept quarter of 1881 (N.A. District, Vol 5b, p 222) and they had two daughters, Alice Maud (1883- ) and Amelia R (1886- ) and a son Percy J, all born in Dawlish.

Percy was baptised in St Gregory's on the 13th June 1886. He was at school in Dawlish when, in 1891, the census shows they were living in Old Town Street, Dawlish. His father was an agricultural labourer and his mother a washerwoman.

In 1901 the parents, James and Sarah Ann, had moved to Exwick with Percy who is shown as a Butcher's boy, aged 14.