Hugh Drummond Allan

Hugh Drummond Allan [1887–1917]

b. 1887 — Partick, Lanarkshire, Scotland
d. 1917 — Croiselles, France

Hugh Drummond Allan was born in Scotland and came to Canada around 1907. He became a British Columbia Land Surveyor in 1912. His professional work was carried on mainly in the Kamloops district and the North Thompson River valley. In 1913 he surveyed in the Canoe River area. “From Mile 49 on the Grand Trunk Pacific I proceeded with my party by wagon and reached the Canoe River in one day,” he reported.

After the start of the first World War he returned to Scotland and enlisted in Princess Louise’s (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders). In 1916 he was wounded, and in 1917 he was killed leading his company at Croiselles, France. Lieutenant (or Captain) Allan was shortly predeceased by his wife and infant child.

The British Columbia Archives has the following items related to Hugh Drummond Allan (none available online as of 2022):

Photograph, ca. 1890
Photograph of Captain Hugh Drummond Allan, ca. 1914
Probate record from Kamloops Supreme Court, 1918

The National Archives of the U.K. has officer service records pertaining to Lieutenant Hugh Drummond Allan of Princess Louise’s (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders).

There is another Canadian figure of Scottish birth named Hugh Allan [1810–1882], a shipping magnate.

Sources of biographical information about Allan:

  • Corporation of Land Surveyors of the Province of British Columbia. Annual Reports (1956).
  • Andrews, Gerald Smedley [1903–2005]. Métis outpost. Memoirs of the first schoolmaster at the Métis settlement of Kelly Lake, B.C. 1923-1925. Victoria: G.S. Andrews, 1985
Allan is the namesake of the following places in the Mount Robson region:

Works pertinent to the Mount Robson region of which Allan was author or co-author:

  • —   “Canoe River Valley.” Report of the Minister of Lands, (1914)

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