Profile

BLAKE, Allan
(Service number 33286)

Aliases
First Rank	Private	Last Rank	Corporal

Birth

Date	12 August 1897	Place of Birth	Waimate

Enlistment Information

Date	19 September 1916	Age	19 years
Address at Enlistment	C/o A. J. Rutherford, Alfredton, Hawkes Bay
Occupation	Farm hand
Previous Military Experience	Territorials Wellington Field Engineers - left district
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	Mrs Elizabeth BLAKE (mother), 30 Bay Road, Kilbirnie, Wellington
Religion	Methodist
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	21st Reinforcements, Wellington Infantry Battalion, B Company
Date	21 January 1917
Transport	Ulimaroa
Embarked From		Destination	Plymouth, Devon, England

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With	Wellington Infantry

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals	British War Medal; Victory Medal
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	27 June 1919	Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Saw doctor

Death

Date	2 July 1969	Age	71 years
Place of Death	Wellington
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Karori Cemetery, Wellington
Memorial Reference	Plot Soldiers/S/5/1
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Allan Blake was born on 12 August 1897 at Waimate, the sixth son of William and Elizabeth (née Mann) Blake. William and Elizabeth had married in 1878 at Waimate and went on to have eleven children born there. Allan was admitted to Temuka School from Waimate District High School in February 1907 and left in October 1907 for the North Island. In the Wellington area, he attended Newtown, Island Bay, Kilbirnie and Lyall Bay schools, leaving Lyall Bay in December 1911 to go out to work.

He was a farm hand at Alfredton, Hawke’s Bay, when he enlisted on 19 September 1916. Single and Methodist, he named his mother as next-of-kin – Mrs Elizabeth Blake, 30 Bay Road, Kilbirnie, Wellington. He had served with the Territorials Wellington Field Engineers until he left the district. Private A. Blake embarked with the Wellington Infantry Battalion of the 21st Reinforcements, departing for Plymouth, England, per the “Ulimaroa” on 21 January 1917. He was discharged on 27 June 1919 and was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. The name of Private Allan Blake appeared regularly on the Waimate Daily Advertiser Roll of Honour under the sub-title of Answered the Call.

Allan married Lillian Tranter in 1927. Twin children (boy and girl) were born the following year. In 1941 he married Edith Marion Burke. He died on 2 July 1969 at Wellington , aged 71 years, and was buried at Karori Cemetery, where a services plaque marks. Edith died in 1988 and was buried at Karori. Four of his brothers, all older than Allan, also served in World War One – John Henry Blake, Charles Edward Blake, Leslie Walter Blake and George Stanley Blake. His nephew, Flying Officer Eric George Blake, lost his life in World War Two.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museumm Cenotaph Database [04 July 2022]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [04 July 2022]; School Admission records (South Canterbury, Wellington & Kilbirnie branches NZSG) [08 July 2022]; Karori Cemetery headstone image (Wellington City Council) [08 July 2022]; Waimate Daily Advertiser, 30 May 1918 (Papers Past) [18 September 2019]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, Teresa Scott, South Canterbury Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

Tell us more

Do you have information that could be added to this story? Or related images that you are happy to share? Submit them here!