Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Temporary Major T. M. Allison, Gloucestershire Regiment, who, having twice been wounded on the Somme, was killed in action on 30 May 1918

1914-15 Star (Capt., Glouc. R.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Major), with related Memorial Plaque (Thomas McGregor Allison) and original portrait photograph in uniform, all contained in an oak glazed display frame; together with a 1914-18 Services Rendered badge from the City of Sault Saint Marie, Chippewa County, Michigan, bronze, extremely fine (5) £600-700

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to Great War Casualties formed by Tim Parsons.

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M.I.D. London Gazette 4 January 1917.

Thomas McGregor Allison, who came from Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, was born in July 1878. Pre-war, he served for nine years in the 2nd Gloucestershire R.E.V., being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in April 1896 and resigning as a Captain in December 1904, shortly before taking up a position in the leather manufacturing business in the U.S.A.

Returning home on the outbreak of hostilities, Allison was given a temporary commission as a Captain in the Gloucestershire Regiment in December 1914, and was posted to the 12th (Bristol’s Own) Battalion in the same month. He arrived in France at the end of December 1915.

Allison was wounded in an attack on the German trenches south of Guillemont on the Somme on 3 September 1916, his deeds that day almost certainly resulting in his mention in despatches (London Gazette 4 January 1917). The Bristol Times and Mirror of 9 September reported that he ‘was wounded in the head by a bullet’ and that he had been sent to a ‘base hospital abroad.’ Another local newspaper suggests that his wound was actually shrapnel in the neck.

Returning to his Battalion, he was advanced to Temporary Major in March 1917 and picked up a second wound in an attack at Fresnoy on 8 May 1917. The Battalion’s war diary for this date states:

‘ ... Captain Kendal reported about 7.30 a.m. that casualties were very heavy and his men shaken and asked for a new Company. I ordered Major Allison with ‘D’ Company to advance to Sunken Road and make ground to the front and join his force on the left of the Canadians ... [but] ... this was done and at 9.45 a.m. Major Allison reported his Company held up by machine-gun fire on a line north and south through T. 30 Central and heavily barraged ...’

The author next mentions Allison as being among the wounded, and concludes this part of his report with the the bland statement that there was ‘not a single Company Officer left in 12/Gloucestershires.’

More precise details of the gallant Allison’s fate are to be found in a report from Mrs. Burn’s Hospital for Officers at Stoodley Knowle, Torquay, in which she states that her patient ‘was struck by a machine-gun bullet, some swelling followed with much bruising.’

Returning to his unit for a third stint of active service before the end of the year, Allison was finally killled in action in May 1918. A Bristol newspaper, The Observer, printed an informative obituary notice on 15 June 1918, from which some of the above information has been taken.

Allison was buried in the Chambrey British Cemetery, France.