Name
Frank Allum
1888
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
27/08/1917
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
55228
Welsh Regiment
16th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TYNE COT MEMORIAL
Panel 93 to 94.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial,
John Dickinson & Co Memorial, Apsley Mills, Apsley,
Family grave of brother Alfred Allum. Heath Lane Cemetery, Hemel Hempstead
Pre War
Frank Allum was born in 1888 in Hemel Hempstead, the son of James and Louisa Allum, and one of eight children, all boys, although one died in infancy. He was baptised at St John the Evangelist, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead on 4 October 1893 along with his brothers Bertie, Henry and Leonard.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at 143 Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead, where his father was a labourer in the paper factory.
By 1901 they had moved to at 15 Doolittle Yard, Kings Langley, Herts. His father was then working as a guillotine worker still working in the paper factory and Frank was a schoolboy. They remained at the same address in 1911 and Frank, his father, and brothers Thomas and Leonard were all working at the paper factory (John Dickinson & Co). Frank was employed as a Goods Carter (moving items from one department to another in the paper mill)
He married Winifred Woodhouse in October 1914 at Hemel Hempstead. She had also been employed at John Dickinson & Co at Apsley Mills and worked was a 'Lady Clerk'. She was nine years younger than Frank and just seventeen when they married - She later remarried to Edgar Hitchman in Hemel Hempstead in 1919.
Wartime Service
He was called up for military service and attested in Hemel Hempstead in August/September 1916. He initially enlisted into the Bedfordshire Regiment (reg. no. 32005), and underwent basic training in Felixstowe before being sent to France, where he was transferred to the 16th Battalion, Welsh Regiment.
He joined the 16th Battalion on 17 April 1917 near Ypres, as part of a draft of men needed to replace losses during the Somme Offensive the previous year. He first saw action at the Battle of Pilckem Ridge, followed by the Battle of Langemark.
In late August, the Battalion were ordered to attack from waterlogged trenches, in terrible weather, with heavy rail and strong wind. They came under intensive enemy fire and suffered heavy casualties. Frank was posted missing following the attack and was later confirmed as killed in action on or after 27 August 1917.
He has no known grave, and his name is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium. He is one of 56 men from the 16th Battalion, Welsh Regiment named on the Memorial who died on that day.
Additional Information
Register of Soldiers' Effects does not state who his effects were given to, but there is a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing of £2 8s 7d.
His widow received a pension of 13 shillings 9 pence a week.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.hemelheroes.com., www.dacorumheritage.org.uk, www.hemelatwar.org.
