Allen Basil Bratton was born in Shrewsbury in 1890 the son of Doctor James Allen Bratton. His father died when he was 3.
He was a friend of William Noel Downing at Harrow School from 1904 to 1907 and features on at least one photograph in our family collections. Most significantly he is identified as the man leaning back to back with Wilmot Evans at a picnic held on leave from the front in 1915.
After a picnic, 14 Aug 1915. Wilmot is fourth on the left
Allen Bratton served as an officer in the north Lancashire Regiment and won the Military Cross in Jan 1918.
The photo was either taken in Hagley or possibly Bewdley and appears to be a gathering of disparate young people mainly focused around friends and relations of Molly Evans. Although not on the photograph she would also have been England in the Summer of 1915 before taking up a post in the No 2 General Hospital in Le Havre in Oct 1915.
An annotated version of the same photo (Juliet’s album) gives the people from the left as follows:
Henry xxxx. Allen Bratten, Mrs Lee, Wilmot, Helen Wilson, Rosalind xxx, Barbara Spencer, Stephen Lee, Molly Edmondson, Roy Marten
Sources
- Harrow School Register, 1800-1911, 3rd Edition, Longmans, Green and Co. London 1911