Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 01.djvu/311

Allan  with other encouragement the praise of Tannahill, like himself a Renfrewshire weaver and song-writer. R. A. Smith set to music many of his Scotch songs, published in the ‘Scottish Minstrel’ (1820), and a number of them appeared in the ‘Harp of Renfrewshire.’ A Volume of Allan's poems was printed by subscription in 1836, without success. He had reared a large family, and was poor, old, and discontented, when, in opposition to the advice of his friends, he sailed for the United States, where his youngest son was a portrait-painter of promise. He died at New York on 1 June 1841, six days after landing. Allan's Scotch lyrics are melodious and occasionally pathetic, but seldom of more than average merit. The best of them is the ‘Covenanter's Lament.’

[Memoir in Charles Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel (1856), and in Chambers's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1868).]  ALLAN, THOMAS (1777–1833), mineralogist, was born at Edinburgh on 17 July 1777, where his father was a banker, and was educated at the High School. He entered his father's bank, but took to scientific pursuits from his childhood. At the peace of Amiens he visited Paris, made scientific acquaintances, and began a mineralogical collection in Dauphiné. In 1808 he published an ‘Alphabetical List of Minerals in English, French, and German,’ and he is the reputed author of a ‘Sketch of Mr. [afterwards Sir Humphry] Davy's Lectures in Geology, from Notes taken by a Private Gentleman,’ which appeared about 1811. He afterwards travelled in Ireland and England; in 1812 he visited the Faroe Islands, and communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh an account of their mineralogy. In 1811 Giesecke shipped for Denmark a collection of minerals, formed during six years' labour in Greenland. The ship was captured by a French privateer, retaken by an English frigate, and the boxes sold at Leith for 40l. to Allan. Amongst them was 5,000l. worth of cryolite, and a new mineral called, after the purchaser, Allanite. In 1813 Giesecke returned with a fresh collection, made in Greenland, and was hospitably received by the proprietor of his first collection, who afterwards obtained for him a professorship of mineralogy at Dublin. Allan continued to increase his collection, with the assistance of W. Haidinger, a German geologist, until it became the finest in Scotland. Allan was an admirer of Hutton, and published papers upon his theories in the Edinburgh Transactions. Besides the volumes noticed above, Allan wrote the article ‘Diamond’ for the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ He was a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was a public-spirited citizen, filled many municipal offices, and was a liberal contributor to Edinburgh charities. He married in 1806 Miss Smith, sister of Elizabeth Smith of Tent Lodge, Coniston. He died of apoplexy on 12 Sept, 1833.

[S.D.U.K. Dictionary; Scotsman, 18 Sept. 1833; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Proceedings of Edinburgh Royal Society, xii. 567.]  ALLAN, WILLIAM (1782–1850), painter of history and scenes of Russian life, was born in Edinburgh, and was the son of the macer, a humble officer of the Court of Session. He was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, under William Nicol, the companion of Burns. Soon showing a love of art, he was apprenticed to a coach-painter, and studied under Graham at the Trustees' Academy, with Wilkie, John Burnet, and Alexander Fraser. After a few years he came to London, and entered the schools of the Royal Academy. His first exhibited picture was a ‘Gipsy Boy with an Ass’ (1803), in the manner of Opie. In 1805 he started for Russia, and was wrecked at Memel, where he recruited his funds by painting portraits of the Dutch consul and others. He then proceeded overland to St. Petersburg, passing through a great portion of the Russian army on its way to Austerlitz. At the Russian capital he found friends, including Sir Alexander Crichton, physician to the imperial family. Having learned Russian, he travelled in the interior of the country, and spent several years in the Ukraine, making excursions to Turkey, Tartary, and elsewhere, studying the manners of Cossacks, Circassians, and Tartars, and collecting arms and armour. In 1809 a picture by him of ‘Russian Peasants keeping their Holiday’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy. His wish to return in 1812 was prevented by the French invasion, many of the horrors of which he witnessed. Returning to Edinburgh in 1814, he was well received, and became something of a ‘lion.’ In 1815 his picture of ‘Circassian Captives’ attracted notice at the Royal Academy, though it did not find a purchaser; but Sir Walter Scott, John and James Wilson, Lockhart, and others, got up a lottery for it, with 100 subscribers at 10l. 10s. each, and the picture was won by the Earl of Wemyss. He now remained in Edinburgh, and though his pictures (including ‘Tartar Robbers dividing their Spoil,’ left to the nation by Mr. Vernon) did not find purchasers amongst his countrymen, some of them were 