The AIF Project

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.

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Taken on strength, 12th Bn, Mudros, 27 November 1915.

Admitted to 1st Field Ambulance (tonsillitis), Mudros, 17 December 1915; rejoined unit, 24 December 1915.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, France, 29 March 1916; disembarked, Marseilles, 5 April 1916.

Wounded in action, France, 23 July 1916; admitted to 3rd Stationary Hospital (gun shot wound, face), 24 July 1916; admitted to 6th General Hospital, Rouen, 3 August 1916; embarked Rouen for treatment in England, 10 August 1916; admitted to Base Hospital, Oxford, 11 August 1916; transferred to Red Cross Hospital, Thame Oxon, 3 October 1916; transferred to 1st Auxiliary Hospital, England, 16 November 1916; discharged to No. 4 Command Depot, Wareham, 20 November 1916.

Embarked Folkestone to re-join British Expeditionary Force, France, 3 February 1917; marched in, 1st Australian Divisional Base Depot, Havre, 4 February 1917.

Rejoined 12th Bn, France, 10 March 1917.

Appointed lance corporal, 10 May 1917.

Proceeded to 3rd Brigade NCOs School, 11 August 1917.

Appointed temporary corporal, 8 July 1917.

Reverts to lance corporal, 5 September 1917.

Accidentally wounded, France, 5 September 1917; admitted to 3rd Field Ambulance (gun shot wound, hip), 5 September 1917; admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 5 September 1917; admitted to 54th General Hospital, 27 September 1917; transferred to No. 1 Convalescent Depot, Boulogne, 30 September 1917; discharged to duty, 1 October 1917.

Court of Inquiry, held 9 September 1917, into the accidental wounding of Corporal Allsopp reported: 'When making dummies out of live ammunition, Cpl Allsopp was accidentally shot by Pte Kelliher. The dummies were placed in the rifle to explode the cap and during this practice a live round got into the rifle and Cpl Allsopp standing near was hit'.

Rejoined unit from hospital, Belgium, 14 October 1917.

Proceeded to Gas School, 17 October 1917; rejoined unit from school, 20 October 1917.

Reported missing, Belgium, 2 November 1917.

Court of Enquiry held in the field, 8 April 1918, pronounced fate 'Killed in action, Belgium, 2 November 1917'.

Statement by No. 6271 Private J. C. Everett, 12th Bn: 'On 2nd November 1917 at Menin Road, Ypres, France, I was engaged with No. 2569 L/Cpl Allsopp A. carrying rations to the supports. In my presence a shell burst and killed L/Cpl Allsopp. Death was instantaneous.'