BORN HULL 1895. HULL PAL. SON OF JOSEPH & ROSE ALLEN ABOVE. 1911 CENSUS. HIS ACCIDENTAL DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 31ST OCTOBER 1916, WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH.*
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE HARRY ALLEN 11/244. A hard man to pin down for certain, but I believe Harry was born in 1895, the second of three children and only son of Joseph and Rose Allen of 36 Seaton Street, Fountain Road, Hull. The 1911 Census has him working as a Barrow Boy, but I’m sure he had a proper job by the time war broke out. He dropped everything and answered the call of King and Country enlisting in September 1914 for the fledgling 11th Battalion Eeast Yorkshire Regiment, the 2nd Hull Pals. Harry trained with the battalion at Hornsea, Beverley and Ripon throughout 1915 before sailing for Alexandria, Egypt that December. After a spell defending the Suez Canal from possible attack by the Turks, the Pals sailed from Port Said at the end of February, arriving in Marseilles on March 8th they headed north for the trenches of the Western Front. Harry was killed in the same horrific accident that claimed the lives of Carey Green and Benjamin Arnold, when a Rifle Grenade, faulty from manufacture, exploded prematurely as they practiced firing at Divisional Bombing School on 27th August 1916, he is buried at Vielle-Chapelle New Military Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France; he was 20 years old.
