ALLEN, JAMES C. (d. 1831), line-engraver, the son of a Smithfield salesman, was a native of London. He was a pupil of William Bernard Cooke, in whose studio he worked for several years after the termination of his apprenticeship, and in conjunction with whom he engraved and published in 1821 ‘Views of the Colosseum,’ from drawings by Major-General Cockburn, and in 1825 ‘Views in the South of France, chiefly on the Rhone,’ from drawings by Peter De Wint, after original sketches by John Hughes. He likewise engraved a spirited plate of the ‘Defeat of the Spanish Armada,’ after P. J. de Loutherbourg, for the ‘Gallery of Greenwich Hospital;’ ‘St. Mawes, Cornwall,’ after Turner, for Cooke's ‘Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England;’ ‘Portsmouth from Spithead,’ after Stanfield; and ‘The Temple of Isis,’ after Cockburn. He excelled especially in etching, and was much employed on illustrations for books. Weak in constitution and eccentric in his habits, he died in middle life soon after 1831.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878.]
ALLEN, JAMES MOUNTFORD (1809–1883), architect, was son of the Rev. John Allen, vicar of Bleddington, Gloucestershire, formerly master of Crewkerne Grammar School, Somersetshire. He was born at Crewkerne 14 Aug. 1809. After studying architecture for five years at Exeter under Mr. Cornish, he came to London at the age of 21, worked for some time in Mr. Fowler's office, and settled down into general practice till he was 47, when he returned to Crewkerne, where he carried on an extensive practice as a church architect till his death in 1883. A considerable number of churches, rectory-houses, and schools, either new or restored, passed through his hands, in addition to gentlemen's residences. The little church at Cricket Malherbie, near Ilminster, is much admired, and the reredos at Chardstock is well known and has been reproduced in other churches in the neighbourhood.
[Builder, xliv. 863.]
ALLEN, JOHN (1476–1534), archbishop of Dublin, studied first at Oxford and afterwards at Cambridge, where he took the degree, as Wood believes, of LL.B., and not M.A., as others supposed. He afterwards, according to the same authority, was made LL.D., either at Rome or at some Italian university, having been sent abroad by Archbishop Warham on matters connected with the church, and resided in Italy for a period of nine years. His absence from England could scarcely have been so long; for Warham became archbishop in 1504, and Allen received English benefices at pretty frequent intervals, even from an earlier date than that till 1515, while we know that he was at home in 1522, and that he could not have gone abroad afterwards for any length of time. The history of his early promotions is mainly derived from a catalogue of documents exhibited by him to Dr. Brett, commissary of the Bishop of Bangor, in 1525. He first obtained a ‘title’ or capacity to receive orders, ‘dated at the manor of Denham, 10 Sept. 1496.’ Next he had ‘letters dimissory,’ dated London, 6 Feb. 1498 (that is, 1498–9). He took subdeacon's orders on the 23rd of the same month, and deacon's on 16 March following. A dispensation for age was granted to him on 8 March 1499, and he became a priest on 25 Aug. in the same year. He was instituted to the vicarage of Chislet, in Canterbury diocese, on 6 July 1503, and shortly afterwards obtained from Rome what is called a bulla trialitatis, probably a dispensation to hold three benefices at a time, dated 13 Feb. 1503–4. In 1505 he obtained another bull, dated 13 April, for uniting the vicarage of Chislet to the prebend of St. Margaret's in Lincoln Cathedral; but apparently this was never acted upon, for his name does not appear among the prebendaries of St. Margaret's. On 12 Jan. 1507–8 he was presented to the living of Sundridge in Kent, and three years later (6 March 1510–1) to that of Aldington in the same county. The latter he resigned within a twelvemonth, obtaining in its place the rural deanery of Risebergh, or Monks Risborough, in Buckinghamshire, a peculiar of Canterbury, to which he was instituted by letters dated at Lambeth 25 Jan. 1511–2. Meanwhile he had obtained another bull, dated 19 June (13th calends of July) 1508, for the union of Sundridge with the canonry of Westbury. On 1 March 1515–6 he was made rector of South Ockendon, Essex, which he resigned in 1526 (Newcourt, Repertorium, ii. 448). But in anticipation, as it would seem, of this last preferment, he had obtained a bull from Leo X, who was then at Florence, dated (apparently) on 7 Feb., for the union of South Ockendon to the prebend of Asgarby in Lincoln Cathedral. On 2 June 1518 he obtained another promotion, described in the catalogue as ‘Literæ institutionis Archi'tus Calipolen.’
He now began to attract the notice of Cardinal Wolsey, whose commissary he was as early as 1522. On 2 Dec. 1523 he obtained (of Wolsey's gift) the rectory of Gaulby (not Dalby: see Valor Ecc. Record Commission, iv.
