Background
He was the son of John Bartlett Allen, a local landowner and colliery owner in Cresselly, Pembrokeshire.
He was the son of John Bartlett Allen, a local landowner and colliery owner in Cresselly, Pembrokeshire.
Allen studied at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was elected a scholar "but not admitted, in consequence of his refusal to take the statutable oath." He was later admitted at Lincoln"s Inn however, on 9 May 1798, called to the Bar in 1803 and later admitted at the Inner Temple, London on 21 June 1819.
His other occupations included police magistrate of Union Hall, Southwark, 1819-1925, clerk in the Petty Bag Office in 1824 and one of the Six Clerks in Chancery, 1825-1842. Two marriages gave Allen five children. The National Portrait Gallery, London holds Thomas Goff Lupton"s portrait of Allen, after Sir William Beechey.
His will is in the United Kingdom National Archives, Kew.