Percy Jocelyn Jeffries

A pencilled inscription verso in a period hand identifies the baby as 'Percy Jocelyn Jeffries / Born Oct 10 1881 / Died Oct 24 1882 / at 26 Belmont St[reet] / Chalk Farm'.

Percy Jocelyn Jeffries was baptised at St Luke's, Chelsea, on 27 August 1882. His parents were Harry Jocelyn Jeffries, an 'Electric instrument maker' of 26 Belmont Road, Chalk Farm, and Catherine Agnes née Holgate. The 1881 census shows the family living at 30 Bywater Street, Chelsea. Harry was 25 years old, born in Paddington, and described himself as a 'Joiner'. Catherine was 26 and born at Great Dunmow, Essex. They had one child already, a boy, Herbert Holgate Jeffries, born in 1880.

By 1891, the family were living at 24 Coniger Road, Fulham. Harry was now a 'Carver and Picture frame maker'. Herbert now had a younger sister, Eleanor Sarah Jeffries, born in 1884.

Catherine Jeffries died in 1891, less than two months after the census was taken. Harry remarried in 1898. His second wife was Susan Agnes Cutts, from Lea in Wiltshire. In 1900 they had son, Edgar Harry Jeffries. The family were still living at Coniger Road when the 1901 census was taken. Harry now described himself as a 'Picture frame maker and Art dealer'. He is mentioned amongst the British picture frame makers on the NPG's website as a partner of Harry Edward Mealand. The two men carried on a business as Lambert & Co, carvers, gilders, picture frame makers and decorators at 36 Albert Gate and 7 Knightsbridge Green until the partnership was dissolved in 1893 (London Gazette 3 October 1893).

Harry Jocelyn Jeffries died in Fulham in 1920.

Photographed by Frederick J. Staples of 279 Camden High Street, London.