Allan Alfred Gower was born in the autumn of 1886 in Hemel Hempstead and baptised on Friday, 31st December at St Paul’s Church in the same year. He was the second son and youngest child of Alfred Gower and Mary Henderson, and his siblings were Alfred Alexander and Gertrude Mary. His mother Mary was from Glencoe, Argyllshire in Scotland and it seems she may have named Allan for his uncle who lived with the family and worked as a "Mercantile Clerk" for the County Council, and later the local Gas Company. His father Alfred was a "Carter" and the family lived on Bury Road in Hemel Hempstead where the three children grew up. When he left school Allan was apprenticed to a local baker, but he soon left this trade, and went to work with John Dickinson & Co Limited in Apsley Mills as a "Vellum Binder", where he remained until he went to war.

Allan married Hannah Louisa Longstaff on Thursday, 24th December 1914 in St Mary’s Church, Hemel Hempstead. His Uncle Allan Henderson was best man and the witnesses were his sister Gertrude along with Hannah’s sisters, Eliza and Elizabeth Ann and her brother Arthur. It is not known how the couple met but, Hannah was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire and went into domestic service when she left school. When she and Alfred married, Hannah was working as a "Housemaid" and living at 20 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair in London, where she was amongst nine servants in the household of one Mrs Mary McEwan. (The house sold in 2015 for £36m!)

Allan enlisted under the Military Services Act in May 1915 and joined the Royal Fusiliers (City of London) Regiment as a Bandsman and was immediately sent to Dover for basic training. He was initially posted to the 4th Battalion but, when he went overseas on the 5th March 1917, he transferred to the 1st Battalion. Within a month of his arrival, Allan fought in the Second Battle of the Ainse before fighting and surviving at Messines, Ypres and Passchendaele, La Malmaison and finally Cambrai at the end of the year.

In March 1918 the German Spring Offensive was launched and the Battalion War Diaries recorded, that on the 21st March, it suffered “many casualties in the ranks”. Unfortunately, Allan was amongst these men and it was later confirmed that he had been taken prisoner and transported to a POW camp in Neubrisach (now Neuf-Brisach) in Alsace, part of Germany at that time. He was unscathed when captured and remained a prisoner for just over three months, until he was moved to the Fortress Hospital in Neubrisach where, sadly he died as a result of dysentery. This was not uncommon amongst prisoners of war due to the poor hygiene conditions in the camps and the already weakened state of fighting men.

Allan died on Wednesday, 2nd July 1918.

His death was not confirmed to the British authorities until the 8th March 1919 and confirmed to Hannah in July, a year after he died. Following Allan’s death, Hannah went to the USA with her employer in her new capacity as a "Nursemaid". She remained there until 1959 when, after retiring, she returned to Hemel Hempstead. She died at the Arden Nursing Home, Hunton Bridge, Hertfordshire in 1976 aged ninety-two.

Allan was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co Limited War Memorial at Apsley End.

He was also commemorated on the memorial plaque in St John the Evangelist church in Boxmoor.

Allan is Remembered with Honour on the Neuf-Brisach Communal Cemetery Extension, Haut-Rhin, France, where he is interred in Grave VII. 23.

He was 32 years old when he died.

Allan was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.