1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Allies, Thomas William

ALLIES, THOMAS WILLIAM (1813–1903), English historical writer, was born at Midsomer Norton, near Bristol, on the 12th of February 1813. He was educated at Eton and at Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1833. In 1840 Bishop Blomfield of London appointed him his examining chaplain and presented him to the rectory of Launton, Oxfordshire, which he resigned in 1850 on becoming a Roman Catholic. Allies was appointed secretary to the Catholic poor school committee in 1853, a position which he occupied till 1890. He died in London on the 17th of June 1903. Allies was one of the ablest of the English churchmen who joined the Church of Rome in the early period of the Oxford movement, his chief work, The Formation of Christendom (London, 8 vols., 1865–1895) showing much originality of thought and historical knowledge. His other writings: St Peter, his Name and Office (1852); The See of St Peter, the Rock of the Church (1850); Per Crucem ad Lucem (2 vols., 1879), have gone through many editions and been translated into several languages.

See his autobiography, A Life’s Decision (1880); and the study by his daughter, Mary H. Allies, Thomas Allies, the Story of a Mind (London, 1906), which contains a full bibliography of his works.