CORPORAL 12925 JASPER SCAIFE 9th BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT (ILKLEY PALS COMPANY). DIED OF WOUNDS 13th JANUARY 1918, AGED 38 YEARS.


CORPORAL 12925 JASPER SCAIFE 9th BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT (ILKLEY PALS COMPANY). DIED OF WOUNDS 13th JANUARY 1918, AGED 38 YEARS.




Jasper Scaife was one of the original 'Ilkley Pals' who had joined up together in August 1914 and formed 'A' Company of the 9th Battalion West Riding Regiment. He had certainly seen a considerable amount of action and is believed to have been wounded on at least 3 occasions. In one incident in May 1916 he had been buried when a dug-out was blown and had emerged from the debris with his tunic blown away and suffering from shell concussion. Jasper was known as an excellent thrower of bombs and regarded by his colleagues as especially brave and fearless. It was his reputation for volunteering for particularly dangerous tasks that was unfortunately his undoing. On the 6-7th January 1918 the 'Pals' were in the front line trenches near to the hamlet of Moeuvres in the Cambrai sector. Jasper had volunteered as part of a group of men who would surprise a German trench and it was during this action that he was badly wounded in the back. Jasper was evacuated to a nearby Casualty Clearing Station and from there taken to a military hospital at Rouen where,sadly, he succumbed to his wounds on the 13th January.

Born in the village of Whitford in 1880 Jasper was the son of collier John Scaife and his wife Elizabeth. in his teens he had come to live with an uncle who was a gamekeeper at Lindley. It was here that he met Susannah Pitchford whom he married at Otley parish Church on December 9th 1899. The couple moved to Ben Rhydding and then into the centre of Ilkley and lived on Railway Road where their two daughters were born. From about 1905 he was in the employ of Mr F Walker who owned Ilkley Corn Mill.

Today Private Jasper Scaife lies in the British Military Extension Cemetery at St Sever and is remembered with pride on Ilkley War Memorial
Photo from the Ilkley Free Press and is courtesy James Cooper


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