of Irchester, Northamptonshire, which he resigned in 1715 to take the less valuable rectory of Kettering. He married Dorothy Plowman, who, disliking the exchange of livings, murdered her infant son and cut her own throat, but recovered, and was tried and acquitted at the next assizes. Allen died, while reading prayers, 31 May 1755. He was the author of various religious writings. ‘The Practice of a Holy Life, or the Christian's Daily Exercise,’ 1716, a collection of prayers and meditations, is his chief work. He is also the author of an ‘Apology for the Church of England, and Vindication of her Learned Clergy’ (1725), in reply to Mr. Woolston's pamphlet on ‘the hireling priests of this age,’ and of a sermon preached at Newgate in 1744 to twenty-one condemned criminals, and published at the request of the congregation; of the ‘Way to grow Rich’ (about 1753); a sermon with a preface and essay, recommending the payment of tithes, and reprobating the enclosure of commons; and of ‘The New Birth; or Christian Regeneration, being the marrow of Christian Theology, expressed in blank or Miltonian verse,’ &c. A preface states that the design of these verses is ‘no less than regenerating the whole British nation,’ and expresses the opinion that all who have Mr. Milton's fine poem—the ‘Paradise Regained’—‘would do well to furnish themselves with this little piece, which compleats, or rather realizeth, his design.’ According to an advertisement appended to his ‘Apology for the Church of England,’ Allen had already published in 1725, or was just about to publish, a Greek grammar, entitled ‘English and Greek Institutions for the more easy attaining the Knowledge of the Greek Language;’ a ‘Greek and English Dictionary;’ ‘Practical Christianity; or the whole Will of God and Duty of Man methodically laid down according to both the Testaments or Covenants;’ and ‘An Explanation of the Seven Words of the Lord Jesus to the Seven Churches of Asia,’ which the writer describes as a ‘practical piece.’ But none of these books appear to have survived.
[Catalogue of Oxford Graduates, p. 8; Rawlinson MSS., fol. 16,25 (a short autobiography); Gent. Mag. for 1755, p. 284; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Cat. of King's Pamphlets at the British Museum.]
ALLEN, THOMAS (1803–1833), topographer, son of a map engraver, was born in 1803, and died of cholera on 7 July 1833. In 1827 he published a quarto volume, ‘The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Lambeth and the Archiepiscopal Palace,’ with illustrations, chiefly drawn and etched by himself. He afterwards published, in parts, the ‘History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, and Southwark’ (1827 and 1828), illustrated by engravings on copper by himself and woodcuts; ‘A New and Complete History of the County of York’ (1828 to 1831), with engravings after Whittock; ‘A History of the Counties of Surrey and Sussex’ (1829 to 1830), with engravings after Whittock; and he began in 1830 a ‘History of the County of Lincoln,’ with engravings after his own drawings, which was completed after his death and published in 1834. He also published guide-books to London and the Zoological Gardens, contributed some plates and articles to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and projected ‘A Historical and Topographical Atlas of England and Wales,’ which he did not live to attempt.
[Gent. Mag. xcix. pt. ii. p. 356, ciii. pt.ii. p. 86.]
ALLEN, WILLIAM (1532–1594), cardinal, was the second son of John Allen of Rossall in Lancashire. George, the cardinal's grandfather, who is described as of Brook House, Staffordshire, received from a kinsman, the abbot of Dieulacres, near Leek, a beneficial lease of the Grange at Rossall, where George took up his residence. John Allen, the son of George, married Jane Lister, sister of Thomas Lister, of Westby, in Yorkshire, and had six children. William, the second son and future cardinal, was born at Rossall in 1532, the year in which Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn and nominated Cranmer to the see of Canterbury. His father, who was of gentle birth and related by blood and affinity to the principal families of the province, had him educated at home until his fifteenth year (1547), when he was entered of Oriel College, Oxford. Conformity not being very much enforced in the reign of Edward VI, he pursued his studies quietly. His tutor at the university was the Rev. Morgan Philipps, a zealous catholic, usually called the ‘Sophister.’ Allen, who under his guidance ‘profited to a miracle in logic and philosophy,’ took his B.A. degree in 1550, and in the same year was unanimously elected a fellow of his college. Dr. Whitaker alleges that ‘he must at this time, at least, have professed himself of the reformed religion’ (Hist. of Richmondshire, i. 444). But Allen was not then in orders, and notwithstanding the care of Henry VIII in exacting the oath of supremacy, he had probably avoided taking it, even during that monarch's reign. On this point Mr. Thomas Heywood, F.S.A.,
