Robert Allum is awarded the Serbian Medal

Some family background

Thomas Henry Allum was born at Acton, Middlesex in 1848. His younger brother William was born there two years later. In October 1853, the boys, with their parents William and Marianne (nee Sharp), arrived in Melbourne as assisted immigrants. They made their home in Brunswick where eight more children were born.

In 1878, Thomas Allum married a widow, Irish woman Margaret Matthew (nee Doyle). She had married her first husband Hannibal Matthew in Adelaide in 1861 and had eight children by her first marriage, three of them born in Brunswick.

In late August 1877 Hannibal Matthew, a Brunswick stone-carter fell trying to get his horse started and the wheel of his dray ran over his chest. The accident happened in Sydney Road. He died a month later at the Melbourne Hospital. He was only 36.

A year later his widow Margaret married Thomas Allum and they had two children, one of whom (a daughter) survived childhood.

These were the days before formal adoptions and it appears that the Allums fostered two sons: Robert, born about 1888 when Margaret was 35, and Joseph, born in 1894 when she was 41. There is some confusion about whether they were both foster sons, although I think this is likely, because I have yet to locate a birth record for Robert who is identified in a number of places as a foster son, and Joseph is identified as a foster son in his attestation papers.

Both of Margaret Allum’s foster sons enlisted in World War One, as did Matthew Matthew, a son from her first marriage.

Matthew Matthew (yes, that’s his correct name) enlisted in Perth in March 1916 claiming to be 43½ years old. His was a short war. He arrived in France on 1 December 1916 and three weeks later was in hospital in Etaples with rheumatism. He was evacuated to England in February 1917 where authorities discovered his real age – 52. He was returned to Australia and discharged on 12 July 1917.

Margaret Allum (formerly Matthew, nee Doyle) died at Coburg in 1918 aged 75. Her husband Thomas Allum died in 1925 aged 77. They are buried at Melbourne General Cemetery.

 

The Allum brothers and the war

The Allum family had been living in Moore Street, Coburg for a number of years when 1037 Private Robert Allum, 22nd  Infantry Battalion (later transferred to Camel Corps), enlisted in February 1915. He served in the Imperial Camel Corps in Egypt for the whole of the war and was awarded the Serbian Silver Medal in September 1916.

Imperial Camel Corps members, Palestine, 1918. AWM. Image B00193.

Studio portrait of 1037 Private Robert Allum, 22nd Battalion, of Coburg, Vic., taken about May 1915. Image courtesy AWM. Image DA09088.

 

Herald, 15 September 1917.

After the war, Robert Allum lived for a time in Glenlyon Road, Brunswick East, but by 1965 he was a resident of the Frank March Keira Diggers’ Rest Home at Mt Keira, NSW. (via Wollongong). His seems a sad story. By then he’d had a stroke and couldn’t write. He’d lost his discharge papers, medals etc. when his two suitcases (presumably holding all his possessions) were stolen from him in a similar place in Sydney. In a Stat Dec signed on 23 Sep 1965 when he was in Garrawarra Hospital at Waterfall (NSW State Hospital for those with chronic diseases and diseases of the ageing), he states that his next of kin at time of his enlistment was his brother Joe Allum of Moore Rd., Mooreland (sic). He said he’d had his suitcases stolen about 8 or 9 months before at a Residential near Central Station. ‘I asked a Residential Porter to mind my bags and when I came back the porter and the bags were gone.’ Robert died on 19 October 1969.

He is remembered on the Moreland State School (2837) Roll of Honour and on the Town of Coburg Honour Board, WW1, 1914-1918, located at Coburg Town Hall.

DEPOT 2544 Joseph Allum, enlisted in 5^th Infantry Battalion but discharged.

Joseph Allum enlisted in July 1915. His foster mother Mrs M. Allum is listed as his next of kin. He was discharged at Broadmeadows because he enlisted without his parents’ consent. Margaret Allum wrote in January 1916 that she had lived in the Coburg/Brunswick area for 50 years and that Joseph had attended the Moreland State School. ‘I have always brought him up to be honest and truthful. I have had a great deal of trouble to rear him as he was not a healthy child.’ In another letter she says ‘He is not fit to go away and I find it very hard for to let a boy go to his certain death, especially when he has not had my consent.’ End of story. Joseph stayed home. He died in 1971 aged 75, quite possibly not knowing what had become of his foster-brother Robert.