PRIVATE JAMES EDWARD ALLEN
DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S WEST RIDING REGIMENT
11TH OCTOBER 1918 AGE 20
BURIED: WELLINGTON CEMETERY, RIEUX-EN-CAMBRESIS, FRANCE
They do not die
Who fall
At freedom's call
In battle for the right.
The conflict o'er,
They rest
On Honour's breast.
Victor's by virtue's might.
In hallowed grave
The brave,
'Neath sod or wave,
Strife o'er sleep after fight.
They do but sleep:
The soul,
From earth's control
Released, sees Heaven's light.
We are the dead,
Who, bound
By earthly round,
See not horizons bright.
They live in fame,
Above,
Begirt with love,
Precious in memory's sight.
This inscription is based on the fourth verse of the above poem, The Glorious Dead, which was written by someone called Joseph Turner. The only place I have found the poem is on a website featuring one hundred poets from the town of Walsall in Staffordshire. I don't have a copy, but I think it might have originally been published in 'Songs from the Heart of England, an anthology of Walsall poetry' edited by Alfred Moss and published by T Fisher Unwin in 1920.
According to the poem it is we the living who are dead since we are unable to see the bright horizons that those who died in freedom's cause, fighting for the right, can see.
The poem having such a limited geographical circulation, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that James Edward Allen was born and brought up in Walsall, the third of his parents' four sons. Father, Herbert Allen, who signed for the inscription, was a police constable. James and his older brother worked in the town's leather trade.
James attested in August 1916 when he was 17 and a half. He was on home service until October 1917 when he was posted to France where he served with the 1st/4th Battalion Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment. He was killed in action on the 11 October 1918, exactly one month before the end of the war, when the Duke of Wellington's took the town of Rieux-en-Canbresis. James is buried in the town, in Wellington Cemetery where the majority of the casualties come from the Wellington Regiment and were killed on 11 October.