George Allen
(1827-1911)
22 June 1861

Volume 4, page 112, sitting number 4518.

[Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'George E. Allen,' the sitter was identified on the album page as 'Georgie Allen.' This is almost certainly the solicitor George Allen, who visited Silvy's studio with his father, solicitor John William Allen].

Born in Soho on 28 July 1827, George Allen was the son of attorney-at-law John William Allen and his wife Amelia née Briggs. He was baptised at St Anne's Soho on 30 August 1827. 

In 1851, aged 23, he was living at 9 Cavendish Road in St John's Wood with his parents and siblings. Like his father, he gave 'Attorney-at-Law' as his profession.

On 1 August 1854 at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire he married Catherine Herring, daughter of Charles Herring of 7 Clarence Square, Cheltenham. According to the 1911 census, their marriage produced four children. One of these children, George Maule Allen, died, aged only 33, in 1889 and is commemorated by a drinking fountain in the churchyard of St Anne's in Soho.

The couple appear on the 1911 census living at St John's, Putney Hill, with an unmarried daughter and five servants. George gave 'Solicitor' as his profession.

For many years he was the head of Allen and Son, at one time called Allen and Sons, the law firm established by his grandfather Emanuel Allen. The firm's business premises were at 17 Carlisle Street in Soho. The house, which was in the Allen family for at least four generations, is today a Grade II listed building 'with Adam style chimneypiece to front and Rococo ornamented one to rear, the latter flanked by cupboards with delicately Gothick patterned astragals; dog leg staircase, cut console strings, slender turned balusters and Doric column newels etc.'

He was also, amongst other things, 'a Director of the Westminster Fire Office and of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, which country he visited as one of the new Board after the alteration of the management in 1895' (Two Centuries of Soho: Its Institutions, Firms, and Amusements, by the Clergy of St Anne's Soho, 1898.) According to the same source, despite his partial retirement from general practice in 1892, 'there are not many days when Mr George Allen cannot be seen in his old office, and he is always ready to give his advice and generous help in anything which concerns the interests of his old parish. The gift of the churchyard to the parish as a public garden in 1892 was largely due to his assistance, and the marble drinking fountain which he erected for those who use the garden will long remain as a memorial of his thoughtful kindness.'

He died, aged 83, at St John's in Putney Hill on 27 April 1911, three weeks after the 1911 census was taken. He left an estate valued at £287,098. The abstract of his will also lists 17 Carlisle Street in Soho as one of his addresses. 

[From an album probably compiled by a member of the Hoare family.]