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Jacob Rivers

Jacob Rivers, from Derby, was awarded this country's highest honour for gallantry, the Victoria Cross, during the First World War.

The 34-year-old was one of the first to volunteer for the Sherwood Foresters when war broke out. The London Gazette recorded that during the Battle of Neuve Chappelle on March 12, 1915: “Private Rivers, on his own initiative, crept to within a few yards of a very large number of the enemy who were massed on the flank of an advanced company of his battalion, and hurled bombs on them. His action caused the enemy to retire, and so relieved the situation.”

Remarkably, Rivers repeated the act on the same day, “again causing the enemy to withdraw”. On this occasion, he was killed.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Sherwood Foresters Museum, The Castle, Nottingham.

Census records for 1891 show him living in a court off Bridge Gate, with his father George, a railway labourer, his mother, Adeline, sisters Lucy, Elizabeth and Emma, and brother Isaac.

Another recipient of the VC, Henry Wilmot, lived only a few miles away at Chaddesden Hall.

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County:  Derbyshire