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Excerpt from Blood Sweat and Fears: Medical Practitioners and Medical Students of South Australian who Served in World War 1. Courtesy of the Authors

Lewis Wibmer Jeffries was born on 9th August 1884 in Derby, England. He was the son of Rev William Jeffries and his wife Mercy, nee Wibmer. He was educated in schools in Toowoomba and Broken Hill before completing his secondary education at Prince Alfred College. He completed his medical degree at The University of Adelaide in 1907. He was awarded a Blue for lacrosse while at the university. After graduation he assisted Dr Arthur Powell in Kadina before obtaining   post-graduate experience by travelling to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore where he worked with Harvey Cushing, the Children's Hospital in Great Ormond Street, and Breslau in Germany prior to a year in Kashmir in a Church Missionary Society Hospital. At Great Ormond Street the famous surgeon John Percy Lockhart-Mummery described him as "tactful, courteous and considerate for his patients." He returned to Australia in 1914 and, there, after the declaration of war, joined the 1st AIF. 

Jeffries enlisted in the AIF on 14th October 1914. He was 30 years old, 5ft 10ins tall and 156lb. He was posted to 4 FdAmb and travelled to Egypt and with his unit to Gallipoli where he landed on the first day of the campaign on 25th April 1915. He was to remain there for the entire campaign. He was wounded on 9th May 1915, unconscious with an obvious entry and exit wound in his chest had been ‘red-tagged’ as dead. He had been saved by his cigarette case. Subsequently he was posted to 50Bn and promoted to major. It was with this unit on 13th to 15th August 1916 in the region of Mouquet Farm, that he exhibited  'great devotion to duty when he left his dressing station and went to  the front line at great risk to attend to wounded and to re-organize  the stretcher bearers. When only a few bearers were left he took parties of men out himself and assisted to carry back our wounded after having dressed them under very heavy fire'. The DSO was awarded for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during operations and gazetted on 14th November 1916. He was twice Mentioned in Despatches for his services in France and Belgium. He served as DADMS for the 4th Australian Division from December 1916 to January 1918. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and, from January 1918 was DADMS for AIF Headquarters in London. He was issued with the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal with Oak Leaves. He was appointed OBE in 1919. 

Jeffries married Shirley Frances Singleton on 20th December 1917 in St Georges, Bloomsbury. He returned to SA in 1920 and to general practice where he was in partnership Dean Dawson, Charles Turner and Charles Yeatman. He performed his own surgery and confined up to 200 women annually, many in their own homes. He was appointed Inspector General of Hospitals in  SA in 1933, an appointment he held until 1947. He was chairman of the board of the Adelaide Hospital, a member of the Medical Board of SA and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Adelaide.  Subsequently he returned to clinical practice performing relieving work in country SA as well as working as a medical officer with the Red Cross Transfusion Service until his death. Lewis Wibmer Jeffries died in Adelaide on 6th October 1971. A sister, Eleanor, a nurse with the AANC in WW1, was twice decorated with the Royal Red Cross and Mentioned in Dispatches and a brother, Sir Shirley Jeffries was a solicitor, and politician. Jeffries had three sons all of whom served in different services in WW2. Dr John S Jeffries served with the RAAMC and, his son Dr Lewis Peter Jeffries joined the Australian Defence Force Reserve. 

Sources:

National Archives

http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/NameSearch/Interface/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=7372302

Personal history Jeffries family

Gurner C. M, 'Jeffries, Lewis Wibmer (1884–1971)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jeffries-lewis-wibmer-6833/text11827.

Additional biography from Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019.

Jeffries remained in the Army Reserve between WW1 and WW2 and was posted in various appointments.  He continued to serve in several appointments, in Australia, throughout WW2, from 1939 to 1944. He then returned to reserve postings and was OC of Woodside Army Camp Hospital, in 1951, and was placed on the Reserve of Officers list on 15th August 1951.

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD