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Allen given in the schools, and singing and drawing lessons to be no longer supplied by the company. Allen had been not unnaturally alarmed at Owen's avowed infidelity, and Owen after this withdrew from the management and gave up his partnership in 1829, Allen retaining his interest until 1835. Owen considered Allen to be narrow-minded, and thought that intercourse with great men had rather turned the worthy quaker's head. The Duke of Kent was interested both in Owen's and Lancaster's schemes; his affairs had become embarrassed, and Allen undertook to act as trustee for his estates, the duke consenting to live upon a fixed allowance till his debts were discharged. Allen continued to act until the duke's death and a final settlement of his affairs. When the allied sovereigns visited England in 1814, the Emperor Alexander was introduced to Allen as a model quaker; attended a meeting and visited Friends' houses; and a personal friendship arose, the emperor feeling, it seems, respect for Allen's character and sympathy with his religious sentiments. In August 1818 Allen left England, travelled through Sweden and Finland to Russia, saw Alexander at St. Petersburg, travelled to Moscow and Odessa, reached Constantinople in July 1819, and returned by the Greek islands, Italy, and France to England in February 1820. In 1822 he went to Vienna to see Alexander again, chiefly in order to secure his influence in obtaining a declaration from the powers that the slave trade should be piracy. The emperor and quaker parted, after affectionate interviews, with prayers and embraces. Allen made other journeys to the Continent in 1816, 1832, and 1833, examining schools, prisons, and social institutions, and having interviews with statesmen and rulers, including the Crown Prince of Prussia, the King of Bavaria, and the King and Queen of Spain, to inculcate his views of desirable reforms. At home he took an interest in numerous philanthropic undertakings; he promoted schools and district visiting societies; agitated for the abolition of capital punishment and the protection of the Greeks; corresponded with the Duke of Wellington and other political leaders; and was an active member of Friends' meetings. His chief interest in later years seems to have been in an ‘agricultural colony’ with industrial schools, which he helped to found at Lindfield in Sussex. He frequently stayed there to superintend its working, and died there 30 Dec 1843.

Allen was married in 1796 to Mary Hamilton, who died ten months later, leaving an infant daughter, who in 1822 married Cornelius Hanbury, and died in 1823 after the birth of a son; secondly, in 1806, to Charlotte Hanbury, who died in 1816; and thirdly, in 1827, to Grizell Birkbeck, who died in 1835. His father died in 1800; his mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, survived till 1830.

[Life of William Allen, chiefly a collection of diaries and correspondence, 3 vols. 1847; Life by James Sherman (chiefly abridged from the preceding), 1851; Eclectic Review for April 1848; Bain's Life of James Mill; Sargant's Life of R. Owen; Owen's Life of Himself and New Existence of Man, part v. 1854.]  ALLENSON, JOHN (fl. 1616), puritan divine, a native of Durham, matriculated as a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1576; but in November of the same year he migrated to St. John's College, where he obtained a scholarship on Mr. Ashton's foundation, and became a pupil of the famous puritan Dr. William Whitaker, whose religious principles he adopted. He became B.A. in 1579–80, M.A. in 1583, and B.D. in 1590. In 1583 he was suspended from the curacy of Barnwell near Cambridge for refusing to subscribe to the articles. On 20 March 1583–4 he was elected a fellow of St. John's College on the Lady Margaret's foundation. In 1589 he was suspended from the curacy of Horningsea, Cambridgeshire, but he nevertheless continued to preach. He held in succession various offices of trust in his college, becoming senior dean and sacrist in 1602–3, and senior bursar in 1603–4. Allenson edited the following works of his old tutor Dr. Whitaker: 1. ‘Prælectiones,’ 1599. 2. ‘Prælectiones, in quibus tractatur controversia de conciliis contra pontificios, imprimis Rob. Bellarminum,’ 1600. 3. ‘De Peccato Originali contra Stapletonum,’ 1600. It appears that Allenson took notes of Whitakers lectures and prepared them for the press. In 1624 John Ward edited at Frankfort Whitaker's ‘Prælectiones de Sacramentis in Genere et in Specie de SS. Baptismo et Eucharistia,’ and in the dedication to Dr. Tobie Mathew, Archbishop of York, informed him that Dr. Whitaker had not himself published these lectures: ‘quæ tamen de Sacramentis adversus Bellarminum in Scholis Academiæ publicis prælegit, vir diligentissimus D. Allensonius, collegii D. Joannis Evangelistæ socius, fideli calamo ex ore dictantis excepit et post authoris mortem, cum ipsius D. Whitakeri concisis annotiunculis in memoriæ subsidium scriptis, accurate contulit præloque destinabat. Sed ex rerum humanarum vicissitudine, ipse etiam, antequam prælo mandarentur, fatis 