The Machine Gun Corps Memorial, Hyde Park CornerThe grave of Allan E. Ker VC, Grange Cemetery
MajorAllan Ebenezer KerVC (5 March 1883 – 12 September 1958) was a British Army officer and a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Life
He was born in Edinburgh on 5 March 1883 the son of Robert Darling Ker WS (1853-1940) and his wife Johanna Johnston.[1] The family lived at 14 Findhorn Place in the Grange district.[2]
He was 35 years old, and a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders,[6]British Army, attached 61st Battalion, Machine Gun Corps during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).
On 21 March 1918 near Saint-Quentin, France, when the enemy had penetrated the British line, Lieutenant Ker, with one Vickers gun, succeeded in holding up the attack, inflicting many casualties. He then stayed at his post with a sergeant and several men who had been badly wounded, beating off bayonet attacks with revolvers, the Vickers gun having been destroyed. Although exhausted from want of food and gas poisoning, as well as from fighting and attending to the wounded, Lieutenant Ker only surrendered when all his ammunition was spent and the position overrun - he had managed to hold 500 of the enemy off for three hours.[7]
He was, however, captured in the event and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war only being released in December 1918, a few weeks after the armistice of 11 November 1918. He was gazetted for the VC on 4 September 1919 and was presented the medal personally by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 26 November 1919.[8] On 11 November 1920 he was one of the 100 VC winners chosen as the guard of honour, escorting the gun carriage to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey.[3]
He later achieved the rank of major. He was demobbed in 1922 and went back to practising law, but in London rather than Edinburgh.
He died at New Garden Hospital in Hampstead, North London, on 12 September 1958 aged 75.[10] He is buried in West Hampstead Cemetery but was also memorialised in 2018 on his parents restored grave in Grange Cemetery in south Edinburgh.
United Kingdom
British Army
Victoria Cross
