Captains Henry Jameson Powell Jeffcoat (1872-1901) and Arthur Bysse Molesworth (d. 1902)
/Captain Henry Jameson Powell Jeffcoat DSO and Captain Arthur Bysse Molesworth are commemorated by a memorial in the Lady Chapel.
Captain Henry Jameson Powell Jeffcoat DSO
Captain Jeffcoat was born in Cork, Ireland, on 17 January 1872. He was educated at the King's School, Rochester, 1882-87 and at Oxford Military College. In 1892 he entered the Royal Artillery via the Wicklow Militia, and gazetted on 27 January 1895 to "s" Battery, in Secunderabad.
On his return to England on 24 Nov 1899 he volunteered for service in South Africa, and sailed from Liverpool on December 22 on board the "Ottoman", in charge of 420 horses and 90 reservists.
He was galloper to General French during his advance on Kimberly, and was present at the surrender of Cronie at Paardeberg. He was mentioned in despatches and received the DSO in September 1901. He was in the hard-fought action of Tafel Kop on 20 December 1901, where he was mortally wounded, all but two of his gunners dying with him. Colonel Damant said of him that he was a man of most distinguished bravery whom he would have recommended for the Victoria Cross had he survived. At that time the V.C. could not be awarded posthumously. By coincidence his brother, Captain A.C.Jeffcoat, also an Old Roffensian was present with him when he was killed.
Captain Arthur Bysse Molesworth
Captain Molesworth was the son of Rev. Thomas Molesworth and was educated at the King's School, Rochester, 1881-85, becoming a King's Scholar in 1883.
In 1897 he was brought to the attention of the Colonial Office and appointed to the axpedition then preparing for Northern Nigeria under Colonel Lugard. In November he was appointed to the West African Frontier Force with which he served as Chief Engineer Officer in charge of works, and he was actively employed in subsequent campaigns. During his service in Nigeria he contracted fever from which he died. Commissioned into the West Indian Regt. 1899, promoted Captain 1902.
At a meeting of the Old Roffensian Society, held on 24th March 1903, it Sohool House, under the chairmanship of the Rey. ..Hobson, Headmaster, It was proposed by the Rev.I.J.Cleave-Warne that steps be taken to erect in the School Chapel, subject to the consent of the Dean, a memorial to the donoxy Of Captains Jeffcoat and Molesworth, and that the Secretary be asked to conmunicate with the contemporaries of the deceased, and that the Society Anate a ruinea towards the cost of the memorial.
This was seconded by the Rev. H. S. Cobb and carried.
A copper tablet on marble was duly erected in 1904.
Tafel Kop, Orange Free State, 20 December, 1901
At Tafelkop on 20th December 1901, the guns of a pom-pom section were fought till the last gunners were shot down, the wounded section commander then galloping the limbers away to prevent the Boers from removing the guns, which were recaptured shortly afterwards. Shoeingsmith A.E.Ind, RHA, gained the Victoria Cross for gallantry on this occasion.
The Story of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, by Brigadier-General C.A.L.Graham, DSO, published 1944 by the Royal Artillery Inst.) Alfred Ernest Ind (see above) won his V.C. at Tafelkop when he was 29. He had joined the RHA earlier that year. When the whole of the remainder of his section had been shot down Ind stuck to his gun and continued to fire on the advancing Boers until the last possible moment.
Captain Henry Jeffcoat DSO, who was mortally wounded on this occasion, requested that Shoeing-smith Ind's gallant conduct in this and every other action since he joined the pom-pom section should be brought to notice. He was mentioned in dispatches and promoted Corporal after this action, and was wounded and mentioned in dispatches on three other occasions. He was decorated with the Victoria Cross by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on November 20th, 1902.
The Story of the Victoria Cross by Brig. The Rt. Hon.Sir John Smyth, Bt., V.C., M.C., M.P.
The insignia of the Distinguished Service Order, of which Captain Jeffcoat was an Officer.
H. C. Waldron is to be congratulated on passing fifth in the examination for Assistant Clerkships in the Royal Navy. A. E. C. T. Dooner has been elected to a Foundation Scholarship at Tonbridge. The Rev. J. M. C. Crum, Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford, gave the address at the afternoon service on Sunday, July 16th. Speech Day will be next Term, on October 4th, instead of at the end of this Term, as has generally been the case.
Term ends on Angust 2nd.
THE MEMORIAL TABLET TO CAPT. A. B. MOLESWORTH AND CAPT. H. J. P. JEFFCOAT, D.S.O.
May 14th, was unveiled a mural memorial tablet in honour of two Old Boys- Capt. Arthur Bysse Molesworth and Capt. H. J. P. Jeffcoat, D.S.O., both of whom have sacrificed their lives in their country's service. The procession to the sanctuary was led by the King's Scholars, followed by the Rev. F. Partridge, the Rev. H. S. Cobb, the Headmaster, Canon Jelf, Archdeacon Cheetham, and Dean Lane.
The service was the usual shortened evensong, and, after the singing of the second hymn, the clergy returned to the west end of the chapel. Here the memorial was formally presented to the Dean, who, after reciting appropriate prayers, removed the small Union Jack which covered the tablet.
The Roffensian
The Dean subsequently delivered a short address from the words,
" He, being dead, yet speaketh." Having referred to the deceased soldiers as Christian heroes, he said what he did know of their record was exceeding good faith--faith even unto death, and trust in Almighty God; and in the performance of their duty to their country they had found the line of duty to which God had appointed them. What he especially wanted to speak to them about was influence--a word very much misused. The word « influential," continued the Dean, has become very common, and not connected with any gift of God. What was meant by an " influential" person generally nowadays was anybody who by some means-by position or «fluence-was able, generally for his own purpose, to have an effect upon the society in which he lived. They were apt to forget what real influence was and wherein it consisted. It was a gift of God, and, therefore, must not be perverted to worldly purposes, and ambition for any power over man. It must be used for the glory of God, and the henefit of our fellow-creatures. It was a gift given to every single person which he could not avoid using; and it conid he exercised in two directions-towards socicty and towards the Church of God. In conclusion, he spoke forcibly of the influence which was still being exerted by the conduct of those whose names were inscribed on the tablet.
The small tablet, which has been placed on the eastern pillar of the chapel entrance, is of brass with raised letters, fixed on a marble foundation, and bears the following inscription
A.M.D.G.
et in Diam memorian
alumnorum scholae Regiae Rottensis
pro patria sua etiam mortem obire
Henrici Jeffcoat, in Africa Meridionali Arturi Molesworth, in Nigeria.
Hoc tabellum quantulumcunque
ponendum curaverunt condsaionh maerenteg
Auno Salutis MCMV
The Roffensian
For the benefit of the present generation we append short biographical sketches of the two dead officers.
CAPTAIN ARTHUR BYSSE MOLESWORTH
Arthur Bysse Molesworth, son of the Rev. Thos. Molesworth, entered the King's School in 1881. At Michaelmas, in 1883, he won a King's Scholarship, which he held until 1885. In 1897 he was brought to the favourable notice of the Colonial Office, and was appointed to the expedition then preparing for N. Nigeria, under Sir F. Lugard. In November of that year he was appointed to the West African Frontier Force, with which he served throughont in the capacity of Chief Engineer Officer in charge of works, and direction and planning of buildings, and was actively employed in the various campaigns in the succeeding years. A commission in the West India Regiment was given him in January, 1899, and he was made captain early in 1902. In October of that year he was seized with a very severe attack of fever, to which he succumbed after a few days' illness at Tungurn. He had, to a high degree, the confidence of his superiors.
CAPTAIN H. J. P. JEFFCOAT, D.S.O.
Henry Jameson Powell Jeffcoat (tertius), son of General Jeffcoat, was born at Cork, Ireland, on Jannary 17th, 1872, and was entered at the King's School in 1882, during the headmastership of the Rev J. Langhorne, and remained until 1887.
He was gazetted in February, 1890, to the Wicklow Artillery Militia, and in January, 1892, he passed l1th on the Militia List for the Artillery, and was gazetted to the "S" Battery, then stationed at Secunderabad. On returning to England, November 24th, 1899, he immediately volunteered for service in South Africa, and sailed from Liverpool, December 22nd, 1899, on board the Ottoman, in charge of 420 horses and 90 reservists. After spending a few weeks at Cape Town in breaking in Argentine horses, he was galloper to General Sir John French during his advance on Kimberley, and was present at the strender of Cronje at Paardeberg. He was mentioned in despatches, and received the D.S.O., September, 1901. After the fall of Bloemfontein, he was attached to a force under Colonel Damant. On December 20th, 1901, this officer; under the impres. sion that. Remington with a strong force was supporting his rear advanced and took up a position on Tafel Kop, having in the centre two guns and a pom-pom under the command of Capt. H. Jeffcoat, and on the left Damant's Horse, with whom was Capt. A. C.
Jeffcoat, D.S.O., of the Inniskilling Fusiliers (his brother).
Remington, however, went off in pursuit of a force of the enemy, and left Damant's rear unprotected. Meanwhile Boers appeared on Damant's front. and some 200 men in British uniform (some even wearing the badge of Damant's Horse) appeared in the rear, driving cattle. These fired in the direction of the Boers in Damant's front, and were mistaken by the English for some of Remington's men.
These suddenly charged Damant's centre, and on Tafel Kop was fought one of the fiercest little battles of the war. Capt. Jeffcoat and his 70 men fought until there were only five of them left. Their captain was wounded in the side by an explosive bullet as he was firing the pom-pom, but his place was taken by one after another of his men, till all but tivo of the pom-pom team had fallen. Of these two one had six bullets in his body, and the other was hit in the left arm. At this point the horse on the left charged the hill and ‹rove off the Boers, Capt. A. C. Jeffcoat having his horse shot under him.
When he reached his brother's side, finding him still alive, he knelt by him and tried to keep him warm through a tremendous thunderstorm which just at that moment broke over them, and lasted for half-an-hour. Eventually he had him placed on a stretcher to convey him to a farm near by, hoping to save him by proper attention, but the wounded officer lied on the way, and was buried there next day by the side of 30 others.
Captain Molesworth
In his book "From Kabul to Kumassi", Brigadier General Sir James Willcocks states:
Towards the end of March, 1900, General Lugard asked me to proceed to Zaria and take command of the combined columns then converging on that country...
With Lugard's permission I started on the 2nd.May with an escort of only ten men to join the Zaria columns. Colonel Kemball and Captain Molesworth, the officer in command of our Engineer Company on the Niger accompanied me, and we marched straight across country.
From the notebooks ‘The Naval and Military Memorials of Rochester Cathedral’ (1979)
by Roy Trett, OBE, TD,
Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library
The medieval tombs of the Presbytery and Quire Transept have had a tortured history which many effigies apparently moved and several defaced along with the medieval memorials and brasses over the Early Modern period.
Rochester Cathedral features an exceptionally large collection of Colonial-era military memorials and artefacts. This series has begun to highlight the stories behind these collections and their place in our global heritage.
