We haven’t got his photograph, Newcastle City Library has but you have to see him for yourself.

James Jeffries served with the Tyneside Irish,  during the First World War, but was born in Bombay.

Jo Vietzke and her colleagues at Durham Records Office have been doing some digging into James’s history to add more flesh to the bones. They found that he “appeared in the 1911 census as a sailor, “sea going”. His birthplace was recorded as Bombay but he stated that he was a British subject “by parents””.

See James and read more about their activities as well as Newcastle City Library’s information here.

And hasn’t James got a lovely smile?