Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (9846 Pte. J. Allen. Coldstream Guards.) nearly extremely fine £60-£80

John Allen was born in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1872 and attested for the Coldstream Guards at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 27 August 1894. He served with the 1st Battalion in South Africa during the Boer War from 22 October 1899 to 20 July 1902 and also received the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps for Belmont, Modder River, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill and Belfast. He transferred to the Reserve on 17 March 1903, and was discharged on 26 August 1906, after 12 years’ service.

Allen re-enlisted in the Coldstream Guards on 3 September 1914, and served initially with the 1st Battalion during the Great War on the Western Front from 7 October 1914. He was wounded by gun shot to his right elbow in the trenches at Zonnebeke on 29 October 1914, and was discharged on 5 August 1915. Admitted to a sanatorium owing to a lung problem, he died at home on 12 December 1917, and is buried under a C.W.G.C. headstone in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.