This man is a candidate for addition to Keighley's Supplementary Volume under the proposal to add further names in 2024, the centenary of the original roll of honour.
Click here to go to the Main page
Supported by the National Lottery's Heritage Fund, our project intends to submit about 120 names for peer review to add them to the book which is kept at Keighley Library. The unveiling of the book with it's new names is planned for November 2024, 100 years after the unveiling of the original war memorial.
Second Lieutenant. 21st Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (Pioneers).
Lieutenant Allan Green of Oakworth
Early life:
Allan was born in Oakworth in 1897 to Joseph Green and Jane Eliza Green née Harrison. His birth was registered at Keighley.
He was four in 1901 and living at Denby Mount, Oakworth, with his parents and elder sister Lellis. Joseph was a Joiner.
Allan entered the Keighley Trade and Grammar School with a Drake and Tonson’s Scholarship in September 1909.
He was living at 3, Denby Mount in Oakworth when he completed day school at Keighley Trade and Grammar School in April 1911 at the age of fourteen. He then trained as an architect at Bradford College, passed the preliminary examination for A.R.I.B.A., and was articled with Messrs Moore & Crabtree Architects, of Keighley, and Bradford.
Second Lieutenant Green was also a member of the Slack Lane Baptist Church, and before the war he was intimately associated with the work of the church and Sunday school, and was Secretary to the Oakworth Amalgamated Sunday schools committee.
War service:
At the age of eighteen in December 1915, he enlisted with the Artists Rifles and disembarked in France on 21st April 1916 with the 28th Battalion, London Regiment (Artist's Rifles) as a Private and he was renumbered to 716203 whilst serving with them. In December 1916 he was recommended for Commission and he went on an Officer's training course. Allan was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant in March 1917, and attached to the West Yorkshire Regiment (Pioneers).
On the 19th of August the pioneer companies were making repairs to trenches about six miles West of Arras and just to the North West of the village of Roeux, which at that time was in ruins. C Company was detailed to Curb Switch Trench which is where Allan was with Corporal Harold Church when they were hit by shrapnel and killed.
War diary entry for August 1917:
21st Pioneer Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment.
TRIANGLE.
12th August: A Company, ceased work in trenches for week's training in camp. Work in trenches now as follows - B Company, CURB RESERVE and maintenance of Communication trenches South of River SCARPE; C Company, CURB SWITCH TRENCH; D Company, CORONA SWITCH and maintenance of communication trenches North of the SCARPE.
13th August: Work as above, Inspection of transport.
14th August: Work as above, 2nd Lt. Boyce joined battalion.
15th August: Work as above, C Company also reconstructing part of BAYONET RESERVE TRENCH.
16th August: Work as above.
17th August: Work as above, casualty: 1 man of C Company wounded.
18th August: Work as above, casualties: Sgt. Robinson and Private Reddy of D Company killed.
19th August: A Company relieved D Company on work North of the SCARPE. D Company began week's training in camp. B Company began reconstruction of WELFORD RESERVE TRENCH. Casualties: 2nd Lt. GREEN and Corporal CHURCH, C Company, killed in CURB SWITCH TRENCH.
Curb Switch Trench can be seen on this later trench map about a mile to the South of Roeux village, Section I.31.c:
Trench Map 51B.NW.I.31.c
Second Lieutenant Allan Green was buried at St. Nicholas British Cemetery. Plot II, Row B, Grave 14 and his headstone bears the family inscription: 'He gave his bright young life for our freedom.'
Corporal Harold Church was buried in the adjoining grave number 15. Prior to the war, Harold was a railway labourer and cleaner of 17, Normanton Terrace, Holbeck in Leeds.
Keighley News dated 25th August 1917 page 3:
HAWORTH AND OAKWORTH
A painful impression was created in Oakworth yesterday when it became known that a telegram had been received by Mr Joe Green, Denby Mount, from the War Office announcing that his son, SecondLieutenant Allan Green, had been killed in action in France. No further information is yet to hand.
Keighley News dated 1st September 1917 page 3:
LIEUTENANT ALLAN GREEN
Further particulars of the death in action of Second Lieutenant Allan Green have reached his parents.
Lieutenant Green's commanding officer writes: "He had marked out some new work to be done and was coming back to meet an infantry working party and put them on to their tasks when he and a corporal who was with him were killed by a shell..... I regret your son's death greatly.
He was in every way a good soldier, devoted to his duty, and most conscious in it's performance. I considered him one of the best of the young officers and one who always set a good example to others.
Second Lieutenant Green was a member of the Slack Lane Baptist Church, and up to the time of his entering the Army he was intimately associated with the work of the church and Sunday school, and acted as Secretary to the Oakworth Amalgamated Sunday schools committee. He was 20 years of age.
He joined the Artist's Rifles Officers Training Corps in December 1915, and after serving in France about a year was gazetted Second Lieutenant in March of this year and attached to the West Yorkshire Regiment (Pioneers). The young officer was formerly a Keighley Trade and Grammar School boy. He was articled with Messrs Moore & Crabtree, architects Bradford and Keighley and had passed the preliminary examination for the A.R.I.B.A.
[note: A.R.I.B.A. is Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects]
The Keighlian Magazine obituary:
ALLAN GREEN. 2nd Lieutenant. West Yorkshire Regiment.
Allan Green was a student from September, 1909, to April, 1911. He came to the School with a Drake and Tonson’s Scholarship and was always looked upon as a most promising pupil. After he left the Day School he passed through the Building Trades Department of the Technical School and afterwards attended classes at the Bradford Technical College, where he passed the Preliminary Examination of R.I.B.A. He was during this time articled with Messrs. Moore & Crabtree, Architects, Keighley, and was held in high esteem by his principals.
Allan Green entered the Artists’ Rifles in December, 1915, when he was between 18 and 19 years of age, and went out to France in April, 1916. In December, 1916, he was recommended for a Commission and went through a Special Training Course in France until March, 1917, when he was gazetted and drafted into the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was killed instantaneously by shrapnel on the 17th August, 1917, whilst marking out work for his Company, who were in action at the time. Lieutenant Allan Green possessed a cheerful and happy disposition and his many good qualities won for him the respect of his men and the esteem of his brother officers. We offer our respectful sympathy to Mr. and Mrs. Green, who have lost a good and brave son.
The family war memorial inscription to Allan Green in Slack Lane Baptist Chuch cemetery.
Slack Lane Baptist Church war memorial at Oakworth Community Hall.
Post war:
Allan is remembered with a memorial inscription on the family grave in Slack Lane Baptist cemetery, Oakworth. He is also named on the Oakworth war Memorial in Holden Park, Oakworth and on the Slack Lane Baptist Chapel war memorial at Oakworth Community Hall. He is also named in Keighley Trade and Grammar School's Roll of Honour in the 'Keighlian' school magazine.
He had earned the British War Medal and the Victory Medal for his war service and these would have been sent to his father Joseph as his next of kin, along with a bronze memorial plaque and a scroll engraved with his name. Any personal effects would also have been sent home. Joseph also received two sums of money from Allan's Army account, which came to £60 7s 4d on 12th January 1918 followed by a further payment of £7 on 28th October 1919. A war gratuity payment of £4 was also received by Joseph on 12th July 1920.
Information sources:
England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915
England & Wales Births 1837-2006
1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census
1911 Census For England & Wales
Keighlian Magazine
Keighley News archives at Keighley Library
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919
Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929
World War I Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923
British Army World War I Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920
World War I Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920
1921 Census Of England & Wales
England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007
National Library of Scotland trench mapping service.
