1914/15 Star named LIEUT L A JARVIS S GDS, British War & Victory Medals named LIEUT L A JARVIS & Memorial Plaque named LOUIS ARCHIBALD JARVIS. Medals mounted on a bar by Hunt & Roskell Ltd.
Louis Archibald Jarvis born in Colchester, Essex on 24th Feb 1892 was the son of Major L K Jarvis 3rd City of London Yeomanry of 7 Bentinck Street, Manchester Square, London. He was a Produce Brokers Clerk in 1911 and when WW1 came he enlisted into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve numbered AA460 on 8th Oct 1914 in the anti-aircraft Corps. He transferred to a commission with the Scots Guards in Dec 1914. After training he was sent to France on 12th Feb 1915 with them. On the 16th May 1915 the regiment attacked German lines at Festubert and this is when brave Lt Jarvis fell in battle. The Scots Guards and did very well in the attack driving the Germans back. Some of the leading companies got too far ahead and when the Germans counter attacked were cut off.
F company were one of these companies and got surrounded on all sides. They would not surrender and fought to the death against overwhelming numbers at close quarters. A few weeks later the British pushed the Germans back and discovered the bodies of the Scots Guards at Festubert. This is what Mr Valentine Williams says of these brave fellows: “Soaked by the rain, blackened by the sun, their bodies were not beautiful to look upon; but the German dead spread plentifully around, the empty cartridge cases scattered about, the twisted bayonets and the broken rifles showed the price a Scots Guard sets upon his honour. No monarch ever had a finer lying in state than those eighty guardsman dead amid the long coarse grass of this dreary Flanders plain.”’.
Lt Jarvis is buried at Guards Cemetry, Windy Corner, Cruinchy aged only 23 years old.
