Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Private Allen Cleve Dawson (Service No:W83924) enlisted in the ACMF on 27 April 1942, attached to 10th Battalion VDC. Private Dawson had applied to enlist in the AIF on 24 June 1918 and was rejected on 6 July 1918 because he had a heart murmur.

Allen - born in 1895 in Cleve, South Australia - was the ninth of eleven children of Arthur Dawson (b1858 in Littlehampton, South Australia) and Deborah Margaret Peck (b1858 in Adelaide, South Australia), Arthur (a Blacksmith) and Deborah married in 1880 in Balaklava, South Australia. Arthur had worked as a Station Hand on sheep and cattle stations and served his Blacksmith's Apprenticeship in the Balaklava District. He and Deborah raised their first seven children in Balaklava before moving to Two Wells - Arthur won medals in 1885 at the Port Wakefield Show for his ploughs and wagons. By 1893 Arthur and Deborah had moved their family to Cleve, where Arthur built the first General Store. In 1900 he closed the store and he and Deborah travelled by horse and cart to Western Australia with their two eldest sons - Arthur had purchased land in the Bullock Hills area. In 1903 he returned to Cleve and brought the rest of his family to WA - by ship to Albany, by train to Katanning and then horse and cart to Bullock Hills. Arthur and Deborah had  moved to Kojonup by 1917, where Arthur was a Farmer

Allen worked on the family farm carting water on a sled from White Water Pools and Nungin Springs and humped wheat in Dumbleyung at harvest time. In 1923 in Katanning, Allen married Matilda (Till) May Holmes (b1898 in Chiltern, Victoria). Allen and Till settled at Dampier Flat in Dumbleyung where Allen was a Farmer, and in the 1940s a Motor Mechanic. By 1958 Allen and Till had retired to Bunbury, where both died in 1982 - Allen in July and Till in October.