Percy Jeeves, the Warwickshire fast-medium bowler whose name P.G. Wodehouse borrowed for the most famous butler in English fiction, was killed in action at High Wood on the Somme on 22 July 1916. He was 28 and had no known grave.
Jeeves was born in Earlsheaton, Yorkshire, in 1888. After failing to break into the Yorkshire side he qualified for Warwickshire by residency.
Wodehouse later told Vanity Fair that he had been watching cricket at Cheltenham and had been taken with the name of the bowler. Jeeves was bowling for Warwickshire against Gloucestershire that day in August 1913.
Percy Jeeves was a Yorkshire-born professional who joined Warwickshire in 1912. By 1914 he had taken 106 first-class wickets in a season and was being talked about as a future England bowler. P.G. Wodehouse, on a visit to Cheltenham to watch a county match in summer 1913, was struck by Jeeves' name and elegant bowling action. The first Jeeves story, 'Extricating Young Gussie', was published in 1915. The cricketer Jeeves had by then enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was sent to France in 1915 and promoted to lance-corporal. On 22 July 1916, in the second wave of attacks on High Wood — one of the bloodiest sectors of the Somme — Jeeves was killed by a shell. His body was never recovered. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. Wodehouse, who wrote his Jeeves stories for the next sixty years and never publicly acknowledged the source until much later, was reportedly distressed when told of the cricketer's death.
1912: First-class debut for Warwickshire
1913: Wodehouse sees him bowl at Cheltenham, borrows the name
1914: 106 first-class wickets
1915: Wodehouse publishes 'Extricating Young Gussie' featuring Jeeves the valet
22 Jul 1916: Killed at High Wood on the Somme
1888
Percy Jeeves born in Earlsheaton, Yorkshire
1912
Debut for Warwickshire
Aug 1913
Wodehouse sees him bowl at Cheltenham
1914
Best season: 106 first-class wickets
22 Jul 1916
Killed in action at High Wood, Somme
“He had a beautiful action and could bowl all day.”
Jeeves' name is on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. Warwickshire CCC named a stand at Edgbaston after him in 2018, more than a century after his death.
A young Warwickshire bowler killed at High Wood — and remembered, by accident, every time Bertie Wooster says his name.
Through no act of his own, Percy Jeeves became one of the most famous proper nouns in English literature. The valet Jeeves, who first appeared in 1915 and was still being written about by Wodehouse in 1974, owes his name to a cricketer whose career was ended by a German shell on the Somme.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.