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03/06/1887 - 01/07/1916

Place of birth: Halstead, Essex
Last known address in Bromley: 33 Elmfield Road

Military information

Regiment/Service: Essex Regiment
Battalion/Ship: 2nd Bn
Rank: Second Lieutenant
Number: 2449

Family information

Parents: Robert and Tryphena Allen (nee Luke)
Parents' occupation: Maltser, J.P.
Siblings: (1) Beatrice Cecile (d), Mercy Evelyn, Annie Kathleen, Constance Margaret, Robert Basil, Harold Osborne, Norman Walter Horrocks, (2) Vero Marshall, Helen Gertrude Howard, Edmund Cecil Stanley, Oliver Wylie, Enid Kate, Charles Talbot

Census information

1891
Address: Greenstead Hall, Halstead
1901
Address: Aldenham School, Herts
Occupation: Scholar
1911
Address: Wotton Under Edge, Glouc
Occupation: Schoolmaster

Extra details

Geoffrey was the 6th of the seven children of Robert and Tryphena Allen. Robert had previously been married to Louisa Harriet Whitehead (d 1877), they also had seven children.

He attended Aldenham school from 1897 to 1904. As it was intended that he should take up farming he attended a course of County Council lectures on agricultural science at Chelmsford ; at the final examination he came out second on the list of candidates and was awarded a Scholarship of £50 a year for two years at Cambridge. He was strongly advised by the lecturers at Chelmsford to accept this, and entered St John's in 1905, taking the first Part of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1908 and the Second Part in 1909. He rowed ‘seven' in the winning Senior College Trial Eight in November 1908, 'six' in the First Lent Boat of 1909, and ‘five' in the Second Boat in the May Races of 1909. He remained in Cambridge for a year after taking his degree, specialising in Botany.

On leaving Cambridge he obtained a place at Katherine Lady Berkeley's Grammar School at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire; in 1911 he moved to Milton Abbas Grammar School, Blandford, Dorset.

When war broke out he joined the Artists' Rifles, going to France in January 1915. On 21st July 1915 he obtained his commission in the 2nd Essex Regiment, becoming "Scout Officer" in 1916. On 1 July 1916, during the Somme Battle, he with his scouts had penetrated almost to the third German line when he was wounded in the right thigh by machine-gun fire. The wound was attended to and he was laid on the fire-step of the German trench ; as the Regiment was outflanked on both sides and there were no reinforcements the order was given to retire and it was thought safer to leave Geoffrey where he was. His Scout Observer remained with him and says that he continued to give orders till at the last the Germans started bombing and it was then that Geoffrey was killed instantly. His scout was made a prisoner by the Germans, and it was only on his release after the Armistice that his fate was certainly known.

Thank you to St John's College, Cambridge for their assistance.