2nd Lieut William Alfred Twemlow-Allen

• Age: 38
• From: Seacombe, Cheshire
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• K.I.A Wednesday 18th October 1916
• Commemorated at: Warlencourt Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: IV.B.39

William Alfred Twemlow Allen was born in Seacombe, Cheshire, on  06^th September 1878  to William Frederick Allen and his wife Marianne (nee Twemlow). He was baptised in St. Peter’s Liverpool on 3rd October 1878. His father, born in London, and his mother, from Staffordshire, married in Liverpool in 1877.  William was the eldest of six children.  His siblings were Edith, Arthur, Florence, Charles, and Jesse.

In 1881 the family is living in Egerton Place, Liscard, Cheshire.  His father is a clerk to a wine merchant.  William is 2.  In 1891 his father, with William and sister Florence, are lodging with John and Jane May and their family at 5 Kingsgate Street, Reading. His mother is living with his other siblings in Wallasey, and her brother William Twemlow, a 19-year old bank clerk, is in the household.

William married Charlotte Angelina Cassereau in Clapham Parish Church on 29^th April 1899, giving his age as 22, he was in reality just 20. He gave his occupation as a bank clerk, and address as 73 Gauden Road.  Charlotte was a naturalised British subject, born in France. 

In 1901 the young couple are living at 9 St. James’, Muswell Hill, Middlesex.  William is 24, a banker’s clerk.  As there are no further records to be found, it is possible they went to live in France. His medal card shows next of kin as his wife, Mrs. W.A. Twemlow-Allen, c/o Mrs. Paterson, 24 Rothsay Road, Bedford.When war broke out William enlisted in the 19^th Bn Royal Fusiliers, as Private 1012 W.A.T. Allen. 

According to his record with the Royal Fusiliers he went to France on 14^th November 1915, however his medal index card shows the date he first served in France as 24^h December 1915. The medal card shows he returned to the UK on 26^th January 1916. On 8^th July 1916 William was discharged to a commission.

Pte 1012, Royal Fus.  Theatre of war from 14/11/1915 – 26/1/1916.  Discharged to commission 8/7/1916

His medal card further records that W.A.T. Allen was commissioned to the 21st Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment on 28th January 1916. This was a Reserve Battalion for the Liverpool Pals battalions.  

His legal surname was Allen, his middle name of Twemlow he added as a double-barrelled surname when he was commissioned as reported in the Supplement to the London Gazette, 14^th February 1916: 

The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) - William Alfred Twemlow-Allen to be temporary Second Lieutenant (on probation). Dated 20^th January 1916. 

Little is known about his service as an officer, as he does not appear in the 18th Battalion War Diary at all, despite his being killed in action in the Battalion attack near Flers, on the Somme, on 18th October 1916.

On the day he was killed, the 18th,had been ordered to make a attack on the German position known as Gird Trench near Flers, which had been unsuccessfully attacked five days earlier by the 89th Brigade. The objectives of the 18th Battalion were in the centre of the 21st Brigade attack, and included the capture and holding of a German strong point.

However, the preliminaries to the attack went badly when, on the evening of the 17th October, the enemy who obviously sensed that another attack was coming, heavily shelled the British front and communication line trenches, and severely mauled No.3 Company, killing the Commander Captain G Ravenscroft. This so unsettled the company, that it had to be withdrawn from the line, and the reserve Company only just arrived at the attack position through narrow and congested trenches before Zero Hour, which was 03.30am, on 18th October.

Constant rain had turned No Man’s Land to a bog, and the Battalion was cold, wet, tired and hungry. Thus, with morale at a low ebb, the attack was made at Zero Hour in four waves. The Battalion got as far as Gird Trench, where it found the wire largely intact. Many men the hesitated to jump into the enemy trench and began to filter back to towards the British lines. Despite three attempts to stop this, the attack slowed to a standstill and all four attacking waves merged into one. With enfillading machine-gun fire from the flanks and enemy artillery firing onto Gird Trench itself, the assault inevitably failed, and the survivors returned across No Man’s Land into their own front line.

During the course of the attack Second-Lieutenant Twemlow Allen, three other officers and twenty seven other ranks were killed. He was 38 years of age and his body was not identified with total certainty after the war. His body was exhumed from its original burial place on 20th January 1921 and William now rests at Warlencourt British Cemetery, France. His headstone advises that the grave is believed to be that of William. This usually means that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is reasonably certain about the identity of the body in the grave, it is not sure beyond all doubt.

William now rests at Warlencourt British Cemetery in France. 

Warlencourt Cemetery is entirely a concentration cemetery, begun late in 1919 when graves were brought in from small cemeteries and the battlefields of Warlencourt and Le Sars.  The Graves Registration form shows graves from “Le Sars 6/1, 6/2, Hexham Road, Seven Elms”.

Graves were brought in from the original cemeteries at Hexham Road (Le Sars), and Seven Elms (Flers), as well as over 3,000 British graves due to the fighting which took place around the Butte de Warlencourt from the autumn of 1916 to the spring of 1917, and again in the German advance and retreat of 1918.   The cemetery now contains 3,505 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War, 1,823 of which are unidentified. 

On a visit to the grave in 1985, the author of the book The Liverpool Pals, Graham Maddocks, noted that his date of death was erroneously shown to be 18th October 1918. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was notified of this error, and within two months, had corrected the inscription on the headstone, to 18th October 1916.

The death of  2^nd Lieutenant Twemlow-Allen was announced in the Army and Navy Gazette on 04^th November 1916.

Probate, giving his address as The Brambles, Scarth Road, Barnes, Surrey, was issued to his widow, Charlotte Angelina.

Charlotte never remarried.  She died on 6^th January 1940, living at 41 Rue de la Cloche, Fontainbleu, France. Probate was issued to  William Goodall Twemlow, (apparently William’s maternal uncle), retired bank manager, and John Lishman.

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