Current Information:

Age-30

22, Flodden Road, Camberwell

On 31st December, 1914, the 1st Scots Guards of 1 Brigade, 1st Division, left their billets in Bethune and marched to Cuinchy, near La Bassée. On the following day they received orders to recapture a position that had been lost on a railway embankment there. At 3am on 1st January they attacked this embankment from trenches 400 yards away and by 3am the lost position was back in their hands. But this situation did not last long. They came under heavy fire from their right front and rear and as their casualties mounted up it became obvious that the position was untenable and by the evening the battalion had fallen back to their starting point. One of their casualties was Ernest Allen who was killed.