Pte 13380 Sydney Langley Allman

• Age: 21
• From: Fairfield Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: St Martin Calvaire Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: I.A.14

Sydney Langley Allman was born in the March quarter of 1896 at 10 Squires Street off Smithdown Road, Liverpool to James Allman a bakers assistant and  his wife Martha Ann (nee Langley) who married in Toxteth Area in March quarter 1892.

The 1901 Census shows the family still at 10 Squires Street. His father, James, is aged 32, a bakers assistant born in Handley, Cheshire , mother Martha A. is aged 28, born in Liverpool, son Sydney aged 5. Also at the address are Martha's widowed mother Ann Langley aged 55 born in Maryport, Cumbria and her four children.

In  the March quarter of 1904, they had a daughter Ivy Allman.

In May 1910, his mother Martha Ann died, aged 37 and was buried in Toxteth Park Cemetery.

His father James, now widowed, went to live with his married sister Agnes Howard at 36 Portman Road, Wavertree where they appear on the 1911 Census. Head of household is Thomas Howard aged 45, his wife Agnes 45, James Allman 43 a bakers assistant, Sydney is a 15 year old bakers errand boy possibly working at the same Bakery as his father, and Ivy 7 at school. 

In 1914 Sydney enlists into The King's Liverpool Regiment initially with the 4th Battalion then onto the 12th Battalion and finally the 19th Btn but he remains as Sidney Langley Allman Pte. 13380 throughout his Army Career.

20 August 1915 Army Records reflect his embarkation to France. 

On 09th April 1917 The First Battle of the Scarpe was set for Zero hour 5.30 a.m. amongst heavy snowfall during the 9th and 10th at 3 p.m the 19th Advance began

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

Sydney Langley Allman was one of those killed in action on 09th April 1917, aged 21.

He now rests at St Martin Calvaire British Cemetery, France, where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“UNTIL THE DAY DAWN AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY”

The village of St. Martin-sur-Cojeul was taken by the 30th Division on 9 April 1917. It was lost in March 1918 but retaken in the following August. St. Martin Calvaire British Cemetery was named from a calvary which was destroyed during the war. It was begun by units of the 30th Division in April 1917 and used until March 1918. Plot II was made in August and September 1918. The cemetery contains 228 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, five of them unidentified. There are also three German graves within the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. 

His father, James, received his Pay of £10:1s on 11 July 1917. 

A War Gratuity of £12 was later paid on 25th August 1919 to his father James. There is no record of any Dependants Pension being awarded.

The CWGC commemorated him with a military headstone at Saint Martin Calvaire British Cemetery, St Martin Sur Cojeul as S L Allman aged 22. However they have his service number showing as 13388 when it was 13380. Enquires are ongoing with CWGC to alter the service number on the headstone to reflect the correct number that Sydney served under.

His father died in 1933, aged 65, and was buried on the 01st February 1933 at Toxteth Park Cemetery. 

Grateful thanks are extended to Ian Chambers for his help in providing the depth in this biography.

We currently have no further information on Sydney Langley Allman, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.