Register’ for 1806–7 was written by him, and among his articles in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ were the ‘Constitution of Parliament,’ June 1816, a review (December 1816) of Warden's letters from St. Helena, a contribution which is said to have surprised Napoleon by its intimate knowleage of his early life; two criticisms (April 1825, and June 1826) of Dr. Lingard's ‘History of England,’ and a dissertation (October 1834) on the propriety and legality of creating peers for life. To the second review of Dr. Lingard's history, which dealt especially with his account of the St. Bartholomew massacre, the learned historian replied in a ‘Vindication’ (1826) of his accuracy, which went through at least five editions, whereupon the critic issued a rejoinder, which went into a second edition. Allen's best known work was an ‘Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England’ (1830), which was reprinted after his death with biographical notices by Sir James Gibson Craig and Major-general Fox, and still remains the standard treatise on the subject. As a Scotchman he resented Sir Francis Palgrave's opinion, that from the seventh century to the reign of Edward I Scotland was a dependent member of the English monarchy, and he issued in 1833 a ‘Vindication of the Ancient Independence of Scotland.’ Considerable portions of the ‘Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox,’ a work which bears the name of Lord John Russell as editor, were left by Allen in a state ready for the press, and the life of Fox in the seventh and eighth editions of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ was his composition. Mr. Allen was steeped in the history and traditions of the whig politicians of the eighteenth century.
He was warden of Dulwich College from 1811 to 1820, and master from that year until his death. He died at 33 South Street, Lady Holland's residence, on 10 April 1843, and was buried at Millbrook, close by the third Lord Holland. He left his medical books and manuscripts to Dr. Thomson, his other manuscript journals and diaries to Major-general Charles Richard Fox, and his Spanish and Italian books to Dulwich College.
[Lady Holland's Sydney Smith; Memoirs of Homer; Blanch's Parish of Cam̃erwell; Princess Marie Liechtenstein's Holland House, i. 153, 266–75, ii. 143; Gent. Mag. xx. 96–97 (1843).]
ALLEN, JOHN (d. 1855), a colonel in the French army, and an associate of Robert Emmet in the émeute of 1803, was a native of Dublin, where he was also for some time a partner in a drapery business. Along with Arthur O'Connor he was tried for high treason at Maidstone in February 1798, but acquitted. After the abortive result of the project of Emmet, whose special confidence he enjoyed, Allen escaped from Dublin in the uniform of the Trinity College Yeomanry corps, and obtained a passage in a vessel to France. Entering the French service, he was promoted colonel for leading the storming party at the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, in Spain, in 1810. During the second occupation of Paris his surrender was, it is said, demanded by the English government; but while being conducted to the frontier, he made his escape, with the connivance of the gendarmes who had him in charge, at the last station on French territory. Subsequently he took up his residence at Caen, in Normandy. Allen was a protestant. He is stated in Miles Byrne's ‘Memoirs’ (iii. 190) to have died at Caen 10 Feb. 1855.
[Madden's United Irishmen, 1846, 3rd series, vol. iii. pp. 135–139.]
ALLEN, JOSEPH WILLIAM (1803–1852), landscape painter, the son of a schoolmaster, was born in Lambeth and educated at St. Paul's School. He was some time usher in a school at Taunton, but gave up teaching for art. He painted first in water-colours, latterly for the most part in oils. He found his first employer in a dealer. Afterwards he took to scene-painting, and was associated in this work with Charles Tomkins and Clarkson Stanfield. He painted much of the scenery of the Olympic for Madame Vestris. Allen took an active part in establishing the Society of British Artists, and latterly exhibited only in the Suffolk Street Gallery. An important painting by him in 1842 attracted much attention, and was sold for three hundred guineas. In the following year he painted a companion picture, ‘Leith Hill,’ which was hardly less successful. He was drawing-master in the City of London School from its foundation. He died in August 1852, leaving a widow and large family. ‘His works were of some merit,’ his subjects well chosen, and not without artistic feeling, but ‘crude and unfinished.’ This is Redgrave's criticism, which agrees with that of Nagler. Ottley's praise is not modified by any censure. He etched some landscapes, of which a specimen may be seen, as well as a characteristic water-colour drawing, in the print-room of the British Museum.
[Ottley's Recent and Living Painters, 1866; Nagler's Künstler-Lexicon, ed. 1872; Redgrave's Dictionary of Painters; Gent. Mag. October 1852.]
