Dawlish World War One Project

Wilfred expressed a preference for the East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) while at Sandhurst.

He received a commission on the 1st October, 1914 as a 2nd Lieutenant and joined the 2nd Battalion, East Kent Regiment. Initially they were stationed at Fermoy in County Cork.

Casualty Form – Active Service B.103 shows that W G Jackson landed in France on the 18 January 1915, and that he was treated at No 3 Casualty Clearing Station, for the effects of cold in the feet, at Hazebrouck on 6th February, transferred to Queen Mary's hospital, Nice, and rejoined the regiment on 6th April 1915. He had been appointed Temporary Lieutenant on 17th February 1915.

'B' Company were surrounded by German infantry and captured at St Julien. Only four got away to rejoin the Regiment. Lieut. Jackson was seen to sustain a stomach wound and was left to be captured. There were some who expected that he would have been recovered as a prisoner, and another thought “that recovery was impossible."

It was not until 3 October 1917 that the family received a letter from the War Office concluding that “....Lieutenant Jackson is dead and that his death occurred on, or since, 27th day of April 1915.” The decision was given bearing in mind the length of time that had elapsed without news, and the omission of Jackson's name from lists of prisoners of war received from the German Government.

Wilfred George Jackson's father, George Wilfred Collins Jackson, married twice, first to Emily Maud Mary Poole (1865 -1891) in 1890. They are shown on the 1891 census as husband and wife living at The Elms, Windmill Lane, North Curry, Somerset with a visitor and two servants. Sadly, Emily died aged 36, soon after the birth of a daughter Evelyn Maude Jackson (1891- ).

George Wilfred Collins Jackson next married Anne Edith Ashby (1874-1897) on March 11th, 1895 in Bristol. Wilfred George Jackson was born at Sutcombe, Milton Damerell near Holsworthy on 3rd October 1895, the only son, to be followed by a sister, Marjorie Helen Catherine (1897 -) whose entry into the world caused the demise of her mother, Anne, who died in childbirth in Holsworthy on 28 July 1897.

George Wilfred Collins Jackson, by now a widower twice over, is shown in the 1901 Census to be living at the Manor House, Dawlish with his two older spinster sisters Katherine and Georgina, and his daughter Maud, 9, and son (Wilfred) George, 5.

Wilfred George Jackson appears in the 1911 Census as one of 22 boarders in Littlefield house, Marlborough College. He was 15 at the time. He had entered Marlborough College in 1910 and left in July 1913. He had been a member of the house cricket team in his last year, and was a Corporal in Marlborough College's OTC.