Birth & early life
Born in Sevenoaks, Kent.
Enlistment
Was a volunteer from the West Kent Militia and enlisted at Maidstone on the 12th of March 1855.
Age: 19.
Height: 5' 8”.
Trade: Labourer.
Features: Fresh complexion, Hazel eyes. Light brown hair.
(Possibly a brother of 1843 Charles Allen, both being born at Sevenoaks, Kent, of an age, and enlisting at Maidstone within a few days of each other.)
Service, discharge & pension
Absent, 8th-9th of July 1855, confined 10th-11th, imprisoned from the 12th-13th and sent to the Dorchester Depot from Maidstone on the 1st of August.
Embarked for the Crimea on the 4th of September 1855 and arrived at Balaclava on the 29th.
Did not serve in Eupatoria.
Re-engaged for a further 12 years service on the 20th of December 1867:
“Found medically unfit to proceed abroad with the regiment."
Granted a free discharge to modified pension after 18 years service - vide Article 1115 RAW, dated the 27th of December 1870.
Discharged from Colchester on the 20th of December 1873.
Served 18 years 284 days.
In Turkey and the Crimea, 1 year.
Conduct, "Very good indeed." In possession of four G.C. Badges.
Never entered in the Regimental Defaulters' book. Never tried by Court-martial.
Aged 43 years on discharge. Next of kin: Wife, Elizabeth Allen.
Awarded a pension of 10d. per day.
Medals & commemorations
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasp for Sebastopol and the Turkish medal.
Awarded the L.S.S. & G.C. medal on the 24th of December 1872, with a gratuity of £5.
Not recorded by Lummis and Wynn.
To live at No. 43 East Field Street, Leeds, and was still living there in 1875.
The 1881 Census Return shows him as living at Over 10 Fleet Street, Leeds, a “Soldier (Pensioner)” aged 50, born in Kent, with his wife (named as Bridget, so he perhaps married twice), aged 48, born in Ireland, and two daughters, the eldest a Tailoress and the youngest a Scholar.
Death & burial
A Crimean medal, with clasp for Sebastopol and with impressed naming to "G. Allen. 13th Light Dragoons." and his Turkish Crimean medal (named in impressed letters as before), but with a Queen's South Africa suspension bar, appeared in a Paul Laycock Medals list in October of 1995 and was known to be in an English collection in 1997.
Photographs & illustrations
For further information, or to express an interest in the project, please email the editors, Philip Boys & Roy Mills, via info@chargeofthelightbrigade.com.