Name
Allan Cowen Coley
1898
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
06/03/1918
19
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Royal Flying Corps and General List
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
GOSPORT (ANN'S HILL) CEMETERY
50. 23575.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Bishop's Stortford Town memorials
Pre War
Allan Cowen Coley was born in Islington in 1898 to Harry Cowan and Clara Frances Coley and baptised on 8 May 1898 at St Augustine, Highbury, Islington, London.
On the 1901 Census he was living with his family at Beresford Terrace, Islington where his father was a wine merchant. His father died in Bishop's Stortford in 1906. On the 1911 Census he was a schoolboy boarding at the Beacon School, Dorset Road, Bexhill, Sussex. His mother had gone to live with her widowed mother and sisters in Ilkley, Yorkshire. In 1912 his mother remarried to Ernest Holland.
Wartime Service
Allen Coley enlisted into the Royal Flying Corps. He died shortly before the RFC and RNAS (Royal Naval Air Service) amalgamated to form the Royal Air Force.
The following is an extract from the Gosport.info website. Please note, some of the information contained therein is believed to be incorrect, notably name spellings.
"Lieutenant ALAN COWEN COLEY R.F.C. Royal Flying Corps Age 19 Died 6.3.1918.
2nd Lieutenant, ALAN COWEN COLEY, R.F.C., was 19 years of age. He was born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. He was a pilot serving with the School of Co-operation with Coastal Defences. He was killed on Wednesday 6th of March 1918, when the aircraft (a Be2E) he was flying at night, suddenly nose-dived throwing him out of his machine and into the sea, over which he was flying at the time. Immediately rescue vessels were sent to search for him, but by the time he was recovered from the sea he was found to be unconscious, he was taken to Reed House, at Fort Rowner, where he died of his injuries.
Lt. Coley had been patrolling the area, tasked with being airborne so that quick response could be made to intercept any German airship or the later design of enemy aircraft who were making air-raids on south coast targets, indeed one such airship had dropped bombs over the Portsmouth area a few months before, thank-fully the bombs landed in the sea, and no damage or casualties resulted. Lt. Alan Cowen Coley R.F.C. was buried on Monday 11th March 1918, with full service honours, Plot 50 Grave 77, and is commemorated by a CWG headstone."
Additional Information
Register of Soldiers' Effects shows his total effects of £101 2s 7d (pay owing etc.) was sent to his mother Clara Holland.
Probate was granted on 21 November in London to Clara Frances Holland (wife of Ernest Robert Holland). Effects £204 8s 7d. Address given as Red House, Fort Romer (Rowner), Gosport, Hampshire. First name registered as 'Allan'.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
