Stour Provost - Introduction

It is our intention to include articles here relating to Stour Provost village.

At present we are researching the WW1 soldiers who gave their lives and appear on local memorials.

In May 2021 we completed the stories of WW1 soldiers featured on Gillingham and Milton-on-Stour memorials. Please contact the Museum if you have any story to tell about Stour Provost life.

The website manager reserves the right to include/amend or reject such articles and if included, to remove them at a future date.

Any articles received and accepted will be placed in the Museum's Digital Archive.

Soldiers who gave their lives in World War 1

The following plaque

is in St.Michael's Church, Stour Provost.

(photo courtesy Wendy Waters)

JELLIFFE Charles William

306653 Charles William Jelliffe, mechanician in the Royal Navy died on 1 November 1914.

Charles was born on 9 March 1885, the son of Julia Jelliffe of Compton Chamberlayne. In 1891 he was living with his mother and grandmother at Compton Chamberlayne. Charles’ mother married Mark Myall on 13 December 1905. Charles joined the Royal Navy in 1904 and by 1911 he was serving on HMS Leander and is recorded as stoker petty officer Engine Room. His mother was living at Stour Row with her husband Mark in 1911.

In 1914 Charles was serving on HMS Monmouth, an armoured cruiser launched in 1901.

HMS Monmouth was sunk by the Imperial German Navy at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November 1914 off the coast of Central Chile near the city of Coronel. Of the 734 personnel who died forty-two were officers and 692 ratings including 24 Royal Marine band members and forty-six boy sailors (whose only service will have been to have sailed with the ship from the UK to their death at Coronel). No one was rescued because of heavy seas and night-time conditions.

Left: Map shows position of HMS Monmouth when it was sunk. Below: HMS Monmouth.

Charles is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial and on a plaque in St Michael’s Church at Stour Provost. He was also remembered on the war memorial plaque in the church at Stour Row. That memorial was moved to the Stour Row Village Hall in May 2022. The spelling of his surname on the memorial is Jeliffe but most documents spell it as Jelliffe.

Entry posted 22 November 2023 DJL

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MARTIN Stanley

345056 Chief Electrical Artificer 2nd Class Stanley Martin died on 26 November 1914.

Stanley was born on 14 November 1879 to parents George and Charlotte Martin and was baptised on 5 December 1879 at Stour Row church.

The 1881 and 1891 census shows the Martin family living at 7 Stour Street, Stour Provost. George was a postman and Charlotte (née Barnes) was a shopkeeper/grocer.

George’s siblings were Anne, Bertha, Edgar, Hugh and Ethel.

In 1903 Stanley married Alice Julia Matilda Tilley in Portsmouth. It was around this time that Stanley enlisted in the Royal Navy for 12 years.

Expecting his discharge when he was a Chief Electrical Artificer Class 2 he was posted to the battleship HMS Bulwark (right) in early 1914. Shortly afterwards he was awarded a bonus for inventing a combination lamp holder that would be used thereafter by the Royal Navy.

On 26 November 1914 the Bulwark, a 15,000-ton battleship, was moored at Kethole Reach on the River Medway. She was taking on coal. At 07.50, as the crew were having breakfast, an explosion ripped the ship apart. Eyewitnesses stated that once the smoke had cleared there was no sign of the ship. Debris from the explosion fell up to four miles away.

In all, the explosion killed 745 men and fifty-one officers. Fourteen men survived but all were wounded and five of them later died. The subsequent naval court of enquiry found that either a fault with one of the shells or overheating cordite near a boiler room bulkhead could have started a chain reaction which destroyed the ship. Stanley was one of those who died.

He left a widow and daughter, Doris M Martin.

Stanley is remembered on the Memorial plaques at St.Michael’s Church, Stour Provost, Stour Row Village Hall, and Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

Entry posted 22 November 2023 DJL

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