Regimental number | 4325 |
Date of birth | |
Place of birth | Brighton, Tasmania |
Other Names | Allan George |
School | Bridgewater State School and Friends High School, Hobart, Tasmania |
Religion | Methodist |
Occupation | Engineer |
Address | Bay Road, Newtown, Tasmania |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 18 |
Next of kin | Father, Mr T Hodgman, Newtown, Tasmania |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 12th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/29/4 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A19 Afric on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Corporal |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 52nd Battalion |
Other details from Roll of Honour Circular | 'Hodgman, Alan Gunn No. 4325, 52nd Battalion was fifth and youngest son of Thomas C Hodgman who had lived in the Brighton District for many years as store keeper, miller and farmer and for 12 years was member of parliament for Brighton and afterwards the new district of Monmouth. Hodgman was born on the 'Macdin Erlegh' farm, Brighton, Tasmania on 20th June, 1897. He went first to Bridgwater State School and on to Friends High School, Hobart, where he held a good place in all sport. He stroked the first school rowing team to win the Burke Shield. In February, 1914 he entered Johnsons and Wells engineers devoting his spare time to football and rowing. He was a member of Derwent Rowing Club. He was one chosen to row in the champion eights for the inaugural race of 1916, which was abandoned on account of the war call. Corporal Hodgman was 6 feet 4 inches in height, a lad of great bearing, with a great personality and sense of responsibility - among his brothers he never shirked duty or blame.' (details from father) |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Messines, Belgium |
Age at death | 20 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 20 |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), Belgium The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936. Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign. |
Panel number, Roll of Honour, Australian War Memorial | 155 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Commemorated on Bridgewater State School Roll of Honour, Bridgewater, Tasmania. Parents: Thomas and Robina HODGMAN. Native of Brighton, Tasmania |
Family/military connections | Brothers: 4923 Lance Corporal Frank Rule HODGMAN, 52nd Bn, returned to Australia, 4 May 1917; 580 Pte Harry HODGMAN, 5th Bn, killed in action, 25 April 1915; Cousin: 441 Sergeant Cyrus Havelock LADE, 3rd Light Horse Regiment, died of wounds, 23 April 1917. |
Other details |
War service: Western Front Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |