Henry William Allingham (6 June 1896 – 18 July 2009) was an English supercentenarian. He is the longest-lived man ever recorded from the United Kingdom, a First World War veteran, and, for one month, was the verified oldest living man in the world. He is also the second-oldest military veteran ever.
Allingham was the oldest-ever surviving member of any of the British Armed Forces, and one of the last surviving veterans of the First World War. He was the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, the last-surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), and the last-surviving founding member of the Royal Air Force (RAF). In 2001, he became the face of the First World War veterans' association and made frequent public appearances to ensure that awareness of the sacrifices of the First World War was not lost to modern generations. He received many honours and awards for his First World War service and, towards the end of his life, his longevity.
Allingham was born on 6 June 1896 in Clapton, County of London. When he was 14 months old, his father, Henry Thomas Allingham (1868–1897), died at age 29 of tuberculosis. Henry is recorded in the 1901 census with his widowed mother Amy Jane Allingham (née Foster) (1873–1914), a laundry forewoman, living with her parents and brother at 23 Verulam Avenue, Walthamstow. His mother remarried in 1905 to Hubert George Higgs and in 1907 the family moved to Clapham, London. Henry and his mother are recorded in the 1911 Census living at 21 Heyford Avenue, Lambeth, while his stepfather was lodging away from home working as a wheelwright. Henry attended a London County Council school before attending the Regent Street Polytechnic. Allingham remembered seeing the City Imperial Volunteers return from the Second Boer War, and also recalled watching W. G. Grace play cricket. On leaving school, Allingham started work as a trainee surgical instrument maker at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He did not find this job very interesting, and so left to work for a coachbuilder specialising in car bodies.
Allingham wanted to join the war effort in August 1914 as a despatch rider, but his critically ill mother managed to persuade him to stay at home and look after her. However, after his mother died the same year aged 41, Allingham enlisted with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). He became formally rated as an Air Mechanic Second Class on 21 September 1915, and was posted to Chingford before completing his training at Sheerness, Kent. His RNAS serial number was RNAS F8317.
After graduation, Allingham was posted to the RNAS Air Station at Great Yarmouth where he worked in aircraft maintenance. On 13 April 1916, King George V inspected the air station and its aircraft. Allingham later reported disappointment at narrowly missing an opportunity to speak to the King.
Allingham also worked in Bacton, Norfolk, further up the coast, where night-flying was conducted and was later involved in supporting anti-submarine patrols. A typical patrol would last two or three days and would involve hoisting a seaplane in and out of the water by means of a deck-mounted derrick.
During the preparations for the Battle of Jutland, Allingham was ordered to join the naval trawler HMT Kingfisher. Onboard was a Sopwith Schneider seaplane that was used to patrol the surrounding waters for the German High Seas Fleet. Kingfisher had been the first trawler to be equipped with a seaplane, in May 1915. Allingham's responsibilities included helping to launch this aircraft. Although the Kingfisher was not directly involved in the battle (she shadowed the Grand Fleet and then the High Seas Fleet), Allingham still rightfully claimed to be the last known survivor of that battle and could recall "seeing shells ricocheting across the sea."
In September 1917, Allingham, by then an Air Mechanic First Class, was posted to the Western Front to join No. 12 Squadron RNAS. This unit acted as a training squadron for other RNAS squadrons based on the Western Front. There is also some evidence that the squadron was involved in combat operations. When Allingham arrived at Petite-Synthe, both the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the RNAS were involved in the Ypres offensive. On 3 November 1917, he was posted to the aircraft depot at Dunkirk, France, where he remained for the rest of the war, on aircraft repair and recovery duties. He recalls being bombed from the air and shelled from both the land and the sea.
He transferred to the Royal Air Force when the RNAS and the RFC were merged on 1 April 1918. The creation of the Royal Air Force did not initially have a big impact on Allingham and he later remarked that at that time he still considered himself a navy man. In the RAF he was ranked as a Rigger Aero, Aircraft Mechanic Second Class and was given a new service number: 208317. Allingham returned to the Home Establishment in February 1919 and was formally discharged to the RAF Reserve on 16 April 1919. During the last few years of his life Allingham was recognized as the last surviving founding member of the RAF. Speaking with Dennis Goodwin of the First World War Veterans' Association, Allingham said, "It is a shock as well as a privilege to think that I am the only man alive from that original reorganisation when the RAF was formed."
In addition to his military service as a mechanic, Allingham spent the vast majority of his professional life as an engineer. His employers included Thorns Car Body Makers, Vickers General Motors and H.J.M. Car Body Builders. He started his longest stretch of employment in 1934 designing new car bodies for the Ford Motor Company at their Dagenham plant which had opened only a few years previously in 1931.
Allingham met Dorothy Cator (1898–1969) in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk in 1919. They married the same year in Romford, when she was 21 and he was 23. They moved to Eastbourne, Sussex in 1961 and remained married until she died there from acute and chronic lymphatic leukaemia. They had two daughters, Betty (1921–2023) and Jean (1923–2001). Jean emigrated to the United States after she married a US WWII veteran soldier and died aged 78 in 2001.
At the time of his death Allingham had 7 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-great-grandchild.
During the Second World War, Allingham was in a reserved occupation and worked on a number of projects. Perhaps his most significant contribution was the design of an effective counter-measure to the German magnetic mines. During his Christmas lunch in 1939 he was called away to help design a system that would neutralise the mines and open the port of Harwich, Essex. Nine days later, he had successfully completed the task.
After the Second World War Allingham continued to work for Ford until he retired in 1961. After Denis Goodwin of the First World War Veterans' Association tracked him down in 2001, a 105-year-old Allingham took a prominent role in telling his story so that later generations would not forget. On 16 October 2003, he helped launch the 2003 Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal with model Nell McAndrew aboard the cruiser HMS Belfast. He was quoted as saying "[The veterans] have given all they have got for the country ... I owe them ... we all owe them."
A ceremony at The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London on 4 August 2004, marked the 90th anniversary of Britain's entry into the First World War. Allingham attended, together with three other First World War veterans, William Stone, Fred Lloyd and John Oborne. Allingham also marched past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in 2005 and laid wreaths at memorials in Saint-Omer on Armistice Day. That was the last time a First World War veteran marched past the Cenotaph and it marked the end of an era. No First World War veterans were present at the Cenotaph for the 2006 Remembrance Sunday Parade.
As the last surviving member of the RNAS, and the last living founding member of the RAF, Allingham was an honoured guest when the British Air Services Memorial was unveiled at Saint-Omer on 11 September 2004. During the ceremony, Allingham was given the Gold Medal of Saint-Omer, which marked the award of the Freedom of the Town. The group of RAF technical trainees that joined him at this ceremony continued to visit Allingham at his retirement home in Eastbourne.