Frank Allum was born in Hemel Hempstead in 1888 and baptised in St John the Evangelist church in Boxmoor on Wednesday, 4th October 1893, along with his brothers: Bertie, Henry and Leonard. Frank was the seventh son of James Allum and Louisa Crew who had a family of eight boys altogether. Their second child, Frederick had died at birth in 1875. The surviving children were Alfred James, Jesse, Arthur William, Bertie, Henry Thomas, Frank and Leonard. The Allum family had originally lived on Marlowes in Hemel Hempstead close to Louisa’s parents, but by the time Frank was twelve and ready to leave school the family had moved to 15 Doolittle Yard.

This was an area between Apsley End and Nash Mills and James may have moved his family to be closer to his place of work. Indeed, James Allum and all seven of his sons worked for John Dickinson & Co. Limited in Apsley Mills where Frank’s job was described rather specifically as, “Goods Carter from one department to another in paper manufacture”.

At the end of 1914, Frank married Winifred Emily May Woodhouse in Hemel Hempstead. Winifred had been born in Great Missenden in 1897 and had come to Hemel Hempstead as a child, when her father Henry had come to work as a ‘Baker Confectioner’. The Woodhouse family lived on Marlowes and Frank met Winifred in Apsley Mills where they both worked. Winifred was employed in the Envelope Department as a ‘Lady Clerk’. Frank and Winifred were married shortly after her seventeenth birthday.

Frank was called up for the army under the Military Service Act and went to attest in Hemel Hempstead in August or September 1916. He enlisted with the Bedfordshire Regiment and was immediately sent to undergo basic training at Felixstowe and from there to France, where he was posted to the 16th (Service) Battalion (Cardiff City) Welsh Regiment.

The 16th Battalion had been involved in the attack at Mametz Wood, part of the Somme Offensive, in July 1916 and had suffered severe casualties during five days of horrific fighting. Over a third of the unit’s fighting strength had been lost in what has since been described as a: “Disastrous, Chaotic badly Commanded affair” when the soldiers were “Cut to Ribbons”. The entire Welsh division had suffered over 4000 casualties during the actions. As a result, the Welsh Regiment did not take part in any significant action until the middle of 1917 and soldiers like Frank were drafted from other battalions and regiments to rebuild its strength.

Frank joined his new battalion on the 17th April 1917 as part of a draft of twenty-five men for the Essex and Bedfordshire Regiments. The 16th Welsh were at Boesinghe, a few miles north of Ypres, when the drafts arrived and it was to be two months before Frank saw action in the trenches at the end of May.

On 31st July he went ‘over the top’ for the first time at the Battle of Pilckem Ridge. Mercifully, casualties were relatively low and Frank came through unscathed. On relief at the end of this battle, the battalion withdrew to rest and refit unaware that the severest of all its ordeals was yet to come, during the the Battle of Langemark and actions which followed in August.

In torrential rain and strong wind on the night of the 26th and 27th August, the Battalion lay for twelve hours waiting for Zero hour at the jumping off positions. These were nothing more than a line of waterlogged shell holes situated well ahead of the British Front Line. When the order to attack came the men, almost up to their necks in water, struggled forward. Many had to be hauled out of the mud by their comrades whilst coming under withering enemy fire. It was not long before the Battalion began to suffer heavy casualties and the attack petered out without the objectives being achieved. Out of a total of 400 men, the Battalion had lost “4 officers and 67 soldiers killed; 7 officers and 128 soldiers wounded”.

Frank was posted ‘missing’ following the attack and was later confirmed to have been killed on Monday, 27th August 1917.

His oldest brother Alfred remembered his dead brother on his own gravestone fifteen years later.

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial in Apsley.

Frank is Remembered with Honour on the Tyne Cot Memorial, West Vlaanderen, Belgium, Panel 93 and 94.

He was 29 years old when he died.

Frank was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.