Heroic submarine commander honoured 100 years after death
THE YOUNGEST submarine commander in the Royal Navy in the First World War has been honoured with a commemoration on the centenary of his death.
Lieutenant Ingleby Stuart Jefferson, from Ripon, was killed aged 24 when his submarine was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the North Sea. His relatives were joined by those of his childhood friend, Lieutenant Hanley Hutchinson, for the service at Ripon Cathedral.
The pair, who grew up in Ripon, died within six weeks of one another, with Lt Hutchinson fatally injured in battle on the Western Front at the age of 26. The commemoration was held at the foot of a war memorial in the cathedral and was led by the Dean of Ripon, John Dobson.
He said: “The names of some 250 men and choristers from the Ripon area who died in the First World War are inscribed in tablets near the high altar. In remembering Lieutenant Jefferson and Lieutenant Hanley, we honour their memory too.”
Two years before Lt Jefferson’s death, he was awarded a medal by the Royal Humane Society for saving a soldier from drowning in Immingham Docks.
His nephew, Richard Jefferson, from Norfolk, said: “We all feel very proud of him. He was a huge loss to the family and if he had lived he could have had an outstanding career.”
Mr Jefferson, whose son and grandson both were given Ingleby as a forename, was joined by his brother, Ingleby William Jefferson, and other family members including Prue Hutchinson, widow of the Ripon solicitor Michael Hutchinson, the nephew of Lieutenant Hutchinson and his greatnephew Andrew Hutchinson.
Lt Hutchinson is buried at Grevillers, a war cemetery near Bapaume in France, and is remembered in a memorial next but one to that of Lieutenant Jefferson.