GRACE UNITED CHURCH
Jeffrey Harper Bull
Rank: Major
Date of Death: 08/08/1918
Regiment/Service: Canadian Infantry 75th Bn.
Awards: D S O
Grave Reference: B. 28.
Cemetery: BEAUCOURT BRITISH CEMETERY
Bull, Jeffery Harper
Born: September 2, 1888 in Brampton, Ontario
Death: August 8, 1918
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Jeffery Perkins Bull was born on September 2, 1888 in Brampton Ontario to Sarah Duncan and Bartholomew Hill (B. H). Bull.
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Page 28 & 29 from the Census of Canada 1891 for the Province of Ontario, District No 106 Peel, S District of B. Chinguacousy shows that Jeffery was the youngest of 11 children, including Caroline (1870), William Perkins (1870 – Downsview), Jessie (1872), Louis J. C.(1874), Amelia (1876), Duncan (1878), Lillian, (1880), Marcia Ella (1882), Florence (1884), and Bartley (1887).
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Sarah Duncan Bull lived to have eleven children all of whom reached maturity and she herself lived to the age of 78, dying at Hawthorn Lodge in 1923. One daughter, Amelia, died in 1900 at the age of 25.
Sarah Duncan Bull was a daughter of William Duncan who was born on January 1st, 1800, in Scotland. When he was two years of age his family moved to Ireland where his father (also William) manufactured linen in County Sligo and operated oatmeal mill there. As a young man, William Jr. sold the linen and oatmeal to merchants in surrounding towns in Ireland. The story is that one day he took the proceeds he had collected and bought a passage to Canada. Here he took up a crown grant of land in Downsview, at that time a wooded area. This was in 1819 when he was just over 19 years of age. He cleared the land and became very prosperous through farming and representing his father`s mills in this country. He has followed to Canada later by his three brothers, James, George and Adam and the sisters who married to become Mrs. Lindsay and Mrs. Jackson.
When a civilian chose to enlist in World War One, they went to the local recruiting office and was asked a collection of questions that were then entered onto a document called, Attestation Papers.
What is your Name
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In What Town, Township or Parish and Country were you born
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What is the name of your next of kin?
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What is the address of your next of kin?
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What is your date of birth?
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What is your Trade or Calling?
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Are you married?
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Do you now belong to the Active Militia?
Bull Jeffery Harper
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Brampton Ont
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Sarah Duncan Bull (mother)
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Hawthorne Lodge Brampton. Ont.
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2 Sept. 1888.
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Student-at-law
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No
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Yes 36th Reg't
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A soldier’s Attestation Papers were filled in on the day they walked in to join the military. They show family information at the time of enlistment and were signed by the soldier. These have been digitized by Library and Archives Canada.
Jeffery Harper Bull was appointed in the summer of 1915 to the 75th Battalion, in which he was promoted to Major on reaching France in August 1916. After serving at the Somme, he returned home on leave for the first part of 1917. Shortly after rejoining his battalion on the Lens front he was wounded on August 5th and again on October 3rd. He served through the battle of Passchendaele, and then on the Lens-Arras front. He was awarded the D.S.O. (Distinguished Service Order) in June 1918 for his service during operations before Lens in the previous year. On the first day of battle of Amiens as he was leading his company to their objective, which was a sunken road near Beaucourt, he was instantly killed by a shell. He was buried at Beaucourt. His name is mentioned in despatches five days after his death.
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The slideshow displayed above includes all of the documents that I have found related to this soldier’s death. Click on the arrows on either side of the picture to move to the next picture or wait as it will change on its own. This slideshow may include a copy of his page in the Canadian Book of Remembrance; a page from the Brampton Book of Remembrance; from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission you may find a picture of this soldier’s CWGC Headstone, CWGC Certificate, CWGC War Graves Registry, CWGC Circumstance of Causality, and photos of the cemetery where he is commemorated.