Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Allen, Anthony
ALLEN, ANTHONY (d. 1754), lawyer and antiquary, was born at Great Hadham, Hertfordshire, towards the close of the seventeenth century. He was educated at Eton, and went thence to King's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1707, and his M.A. in 1711. He was afterwards called to the bar, and by the influence of Arthur Onslow, speaker of the House of Commons, became a master in chancery. A few years later he was made an alderman of the corporation of Guildford, and a county magistrate. He died 11 April 1754, and was buried in the Temple church. He formed a biographical account, in five folio volumes, of the members of Eton College, which, by his will dated 1753, he ordered to be deposited in the libraries of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, and a third copy he bequeathed to Mr. Onslow. He also collected materials for an English dictionary of obsolete words, and of those which have either changed their meaning or assumed a proverbial usage.
[Harwood's Alumni Etonenses, 1797, 286; Gent. Mag. 1754, xxiv. 191; Nichols's Literary Illustrations, 1831, vi. 704.]