Hubert ALLUM (1892–1917)
Hubert Allum was born in Wheatley in 1892, the son of John Frederic Allum (born in Crowmarsh Gifford and baptised there on 4 January 1863, the son of William Allum) and Emily Taylor (born in Clifton-on-Teme, Worcestershire in 1860/1, daughter of John Taylor).
His parents were married (evidently in haste) on 17 April 1884 at St Mary’s Church, Reading and had six children, of whom the following four survived infancy:
- Frederick Henry Allum (born in South Stoke on 5 July 1884 and baptised there on 31 August 1884)
- Amy Beatrice Allum (born in Wheatley and baptised at St Mary the Virgin Church there on 6 April 1890)
- Hubert Allum (born in Wheatley and baptised at St Mary the Virgin Church there on 1 May 1892)
- Walter John Allum (born in Wheatley and baptised at St Mary the Virgin Church there on 1 December 1895).
In 1889 Hubert’s father was a gardener, but at the time of the 1901 census he was working as a coachman, while Hubert’s brother Frederick (16) was working as an under-butler. Hubert was then nine years old, and the family lived in Church Road, Wheatley.
In 1911 Hubert (19) was living in Turl Street, Oxford at the Rector’s Lodgings of Lincoln College, where he was working as a footman to the Rector, William Walter Merry. By that date his family had moved to Old Marston and were living at Home Farm. His father was working as a domestic gardener again, while Frederick (26) was now working as an electrician, Amy (21) was a dressmaker, and Walter (15) was at technical school.
By 1915 the family had moved to New Marston and were living in William Street: Hubert’s military record gives the precise address as 4 William Street.
Hubert Allum volunteered to serve in the First World War and was sent to the front in May 1915. He served as a Lance Corporal in the 2nd/4th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 202107) and was killed in action in Belgium at the age of 25 on 10 September 1917.
He has no known grave, but is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial (Panel 96 to 98) and on the New Marston War Memorial on the Marston Road, Oxford.
Left: Photograph of Hubert Allum’s name on the Tyne Cot
Memorial in Belgium, kindly supplied by British War Graves
Postscript
Hubert’s father
- John Frederick Allum was still living at 4 William Street in 1935. He died in the Oxford registration district at the age of 72 in the second quarter of 1935.
Hubert’s siblings
- Frederick T. Allum (born 1884) continued to work as an electrical engineer. He married Eveline Theo Hancock in the Oxford registration district in the first quarter of 1918 Their son Hubert Stanley Allum, probably named after his uncle who died, was born at Hythe in Colchester on 5 July 1921 and baptised at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on Christmas Day 1921.
- Amy B. Allum (born 1890) married Alfred T. Allen (probably at St Nicholas’s Church) in the fourth quarter of 1917.
- Walter John Allum (born 1895) became an engineer. He married Helen Zilpah Fiona Cook (probably at St Nicholas’s Church) in the fourth quarter of 1925. Their son Frank H. Allum was born in the Lewisham area in 1925 (registered third quarter), and they then went to live at Chester Street, Streetly, Birmingham, where their daughter Sheila Margaret Allum was born on 24 December 1928. She was baptised at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 31 March 1929.
See also
- CWGC: Hubert Allum
- Oxford Chronicle of 28 September 1917, p. 7: Brief report on Hubert Allum’s death
- G. K. Rose, The story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (1920) Online here
- Wikipedia: Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry