This page requires javascript.

Rank unknown Marguerite Martha Allan

top

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of birth: 1895-08-01
Place of birth: Montreal Quebec Canada
Next of kin: Sir Hugh Montague Allan; father; President, Merchants’Bank and Marguerite Ethel Mackenzie; mother;
Marital status: single
Occupation (attested): Theatre promotion
Address: Ravenscrag, 505 Pine Ave. W.,Montreal, Quebec
Gender: female
Religion: Church of England
Date of death: 1942-03-31

MILITARY INFORMATION

Regimental number: NA
Highest Rank: Rank unknown
Rank detail
  1. Rank unknown (British Army).
  2. Lieutenant (Army).
Degree of service: Europe
Survived war: yes

RESEARCH INFORMATION

LAC ID: 4993
Attestation record(s): image 1, image 2
Service file: B0105-S020
Uploader's Notes: Enter Martha Allan. She was determined to give a jolt to theatre in the city, and it didn't hurt that she was wealthy and well connected. As the daughter of Sir Montagu Allan, the shipping magnate, she knew who to lean on to get things done.

She also had self-confidence and energy to burn. Most important, she had the theatre in her soul.

Fluent in French, she took up theatre studies in Paris, though it was London where, still in her teens, the outbreak of the First World War caught her. She returned to Montreal and trained with the Volunteer Aid Detachment before going back to France as an ambulance driver. A shrapnel wound would bother her for the rest of her life.

After the war she resumed her theatre studies, this time at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. It gave her an invaluable grounding in how to run a community theatre.

In the same conflict (Great War), having trained as a nurse she herself was injured while driving an ambulance she had purchased at her own expense in France. After recovering in England, she remained there until the end of the war, serving on the staff of a hospital that was being administered by her mother in London.

(She was a V.A.D. Ambulance Driver and did at some point attest to the CAMC. Her exact status is unsure)

Uploader's Research notes: [Nursing Sister Army Canadian Army Medical Corps Canadian Army Medical Corps Ambulance Driver British Army Voluntary Aid Detachment Voluntary Aid Detachment ]

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Date added: 2012-09-08
Last modified: 2018-07-20