Thomas William Allen, (9 May 1862 – 30 April 1950) was an English classicist, scholar of Ancient Greek and palaeographer. He was a fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford, from 1890 until his death sixty years later. He is best known for his editions of Homer for Oxford Classical Texts and work on Greek palaeography.
Early life and education Allen was born on 9 May 1862 at 103 Camden Road Villas, Camden Town, London, the eldest child of Thomas Bull Allen, a wholesale tea dealer, and his wife Amelia Le Lacheur, daughter of William Le Lacheur.Wilson, N. G. (1990). "Thomas William Allen 1862–1950." Proceedings of the British Academy 76: 311-19.Wilson, N. G. (2004). "Allen, Thomas William (1862-1950)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 1:821-22. Oxford: Oxford University Press. His sister Edith married another classicist John Percival Postgate, who was her tutor at Girton College, Cambridge.Stray, Christopher (2004). "Postgate, John Percival (1853–1926)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed., Oxford University Press).Calder, W. M., III (2004). "Allen, Thomas William (1862-1950)." Dictionary of British Classicists 1:11-12. Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum. Details about Allen's upbringing are lacking, but he was educated at Amersham School and by private tutors before going up to University College London in 1880."Dr. T. W. Allen." The Times (London, England), 1 May 1950, 8. In June of the next year he was elected to a classical scholarship at The Queen's College, Oxford, matriculating on 28 October 1881.Journal of Education 3 (1881); 137.Oxford University Gazette 12 (1881): 71. He earned honours: first class in Mods (Honour Moderations) 1882 and first class in Literae Humaniores 1885.Magrath, J. R. (1921). The Queen's College. Vol. II, pp. 334, 341, 343 (fellows); 351, 357 (honours classes). Oxford: Clarendon Press. After receiving his B.A. in 1885 he was made a Fellow of University College London the same year, a rare honour. He began teaching, standing in as a temporary professor of Humanity in the University of Edinburgh for the 1885–6 school year.
Academia and research Allen became keenly interested in Greek manuscripts and published his first notes on the subject in 1887. He would later write in the preface to his magnum opus: "My interest in palaeography and philology began with the man to whom I dedicate this book, my only teacher."Allen, T. W., ed. (1931). Homeri Ilias, 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. That man was Alfred Goodwin (1849–1892), Professor of Greek at University College London. Allen also dedicated his first book Notes on Abbreviations in Greek Manuscripts (1889) to him. Goodwin was much respected and was considered by many to be a remarkable and stimulating teacher.Goodwin was originally appointed Professor of Latin in 1867, but in 1879-80 he was also appointed Professor of Greek. The combined professorships proved too much and he was solely Professor of Greek from 1880-89. He once again tried the combined professorships in 1889, but again it proved too much and led to his premature death a couple of years later. The Latin Chair was filled by the great A. E. Housman; see Richard Perceval Graves, A. E. Housman: The Scholar-Poet (Faber & Faber, 2014), 82-83; Faculties of Arts and Sciences, Notes and Materials for the History of University College, London, (London: H. K. Lewis, 1898), 18-22. Allen became a close friend and assisted Goodwin in his work on a new edition of the Homeric Hymns by collating a number of manuscripts. Goodwin had conceived the edition as a two-volume production, with text and commentary, but after his premature death, only notes to about four hundred lines of the text could be located. Allen was asked to assume responsibility for seeing what remained through the press, a task that entailed considerable labour on his part, though out of modesty he omitted his name from the title page (Hymni Homerici, ed. Goodwin [Oxford, 1893]).Sikes, E. E. (1894). Review of Goodwin, Hymni Homerici. The Classical Review 8 (1894): 156-57.Tyrrell, R. Y. (1894). "The Homeric Hymns." Hermathena Vol. 9, No. 20, pp. 30-49.
In the Michaelmas Term 1887 Allen was elected to a Craven Fellowship at Oxford."University Jottings." The Academy Vol. 32, No. 814 (10 Dec 1887), 389. Under the new scheme of 1886, the Craven Fellow was to receive £200 annually for two years and was "required to spend at least eight months of each year of his tenure of the Fellowship in residence abroad for the purpose of study at some place or places approved by the electing Committee.""University Scholarships." The Historical Register of the University of Oxford, Part I., 109-12. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Allen had proposed to the electors three lines of study: "a collation of MSS. of the Iliad, a collection of materials bearing upon palaeography generally, and, in cases where is seemed useful, cataloguing of manuscripts."Allen, T. W. (1890). Notes on Greek Manuscripts in Italian Libraries. London: David Nutt. He followed his proposal and spent the bulk of 1888 and 1889 primarily in Italy combing the libraries for relevant manuscripts.Some sixty years later, the classical scholar Douglas Young made a similar journey scouring the European libraries for Theognis manuscripts. Before setting off, he consulted with Allen and found him "full of reminiscence of several of the Dutch and Italian libraries I was aiming to visit." Allen cautioned him: "On no account, my dear sir, drink the wine of Modena. Lambrusco they call it. Only fit for gondoliers" (Douglas Young, Chasing an Ancient Greek: Discursive Reminiscences of an [sic] European Journey [London: Hollis & Carter, 1950], 9). Young provides a glimpse into what he and Allen faced: "[M]any catalogues are defective or inaccurate, without indices, or with indices whose items stray from the order of the alphabet. Few things are more baffling than to peruse, in the hope of a reference to some part of the author one seeks, an unindexed account in Bulgarian of the manuscript collection of some Balkan monastery, which has subsequently been sacked by Greeks or Turks. It may prove that a famous library with hundreds of Greek manuscripts contains none of your particular pet. Then you find that in a collection of only two MSS. in a minor repository one is to your purpose. Whereupon you must confirm with the librarian whether the catalogue is right and the MS. still exists, or has been burned, stolen, or mislaid, the last a possibility of frequent occurrence" (ibid., 2-3). Finally, in defense of Modena and its Lambrusco, Young writes: "Not only did I much relish this altogether unclassifiable wine, but the food and the company were excellent as well" (ibid., 107). His first book Notes on Abbreviations in Greek Manuscripts (1889) offered the result of his palaeographical investigations and was well received by England's greatest expert on the subject Sir Edward Maunde Thompson.Thompson, E. Maunde (1890). Review of Allen, Notes on Abbreviations in Greek MSS. The Classical Review 4:219-20."Philology Notes." The Academy Vol. 36, No. 917 (30 Nov 1889), 359. Although not a comprehensive work, it was then the best study of the topic in English and is still a useful guide for students. The next year he would publish his second book Notes on Greek Manuscripts in Italian Libraries (1890), which offered useful "rough lists," providing pertinent details not available in published catalogues, which were often inadequate, or did not exist. The Convocation at Oxford had authorized an expenditure of £500 for the production of the report, the large sum being indicative of their satisfaction with his first publication."University Jottings." The Academy Vol. 36, No. 917 (30 Nov 1889), 355.Allen says (1931, 1:vii) that funding after the Craven Fellowship was continued "by a grant which lasted till 1894." Whether this is the £500 mentioned above is not clear. Not only were these trips productive in terms of providing the young scholar with a wealth of palaeographical experience, but at the end of his travels, while in Florence, he would meet his future wife Miss Laura Hope. Following these labors he was awarded a M.A. in 1889 and elected Fellow of The Queen's College in 1890.Foster, J. (1887). Alumni Oxoniensis: The Members of the University of Oxford 1715–1886, Vol. I, p. 18. London: Parker and Co.Foster, J. (1893). Oxford Men 1880-1892, p. 9. Oxford: James Parker.Holland, A. W. (1904). The Oxford and Cambridge Yearbook, Pt. I. Oxford, p. 347 London: Swan Sonnenschein. As for the latter election, the Senior Tutor at the time wrote that it "was made without examination, a compliment which has never before been paid to anyone by this college.
In the 1890s Allen focused his labours on what would be his life's work, the texts of Homer and the Homeric Hymns. During the latter part of the decade he began a working relationship with David B. Monro, a leading Homeric scholar and Provost of Oriel College, Oxford.Allen contributed a small sketch of Monro as a scholar: "What distinguished Monro's Homeric work from that of other Englishmen of his generation was, in the first place, his knowledge of Comparative Grammar or Philology. When he began to write on Homer he was almost alone in this possession, and at his death there are few members of his own University who have a first-hand knowledge of Comparative Philology. ... In these matters his method was very much that of Aristarchus, who, so far as we can gather, did not admit a correction into the Vulgate of his day, unless diplomatic authority could be found for it. Monro, indeed, in many respects, resembled that most judicious of ancient critics. Besides this he was a great exegete, and had a sure knowledge both of Greek and of Homeric usage" (John Cook Wilson, David Binning Monro: A Short Memoir [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907], 15-16). Allen also contributed a couple of paragraphs to Monro's revised entry on Homer for the 11th ed. of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 17:626-39, at 631-32. In 1896 Monro published his Homeric text Homeri Opera et reliquiae, which included the version of the Homeric Hymns that Allen had edited three years earlier. At the start of the next year, the Delegates of Oxford University Press announced "a standard and uniform series" of "Oxford Classical Texts", with the responsibility for Homer being assigned to Monro and Allen.The Oxford Magazine Vol. 15, No. 9 (27 Jan 1897), 145. The fruit of their collaboration would be published five years later, a two-volume edition of the Iliad, Homeri Opera I-II (1902). During this decade Allen was struggling financially, and as a result was forced to delay his wedding four years until 1894. Even then, after they moved into their new residence at 6 Canterbury Road, his wife's aunt and sister took part of the house and contributed towards expenses. Allen twice applied for more remunerative positions, first for the chair of Humanity at the University of Edinburgh in 1891 and then for the chair of Greek at the University of Glasgow in 1899, both of which he failed to obtain. Fortunately, he was appointed a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway College in 1893, a position he held until 1918, and which would bring in additional monies."Notes and Summary." The Educational Times Vol. 46, No. 392 (1 Dec 1893), 507.Bingham, Caroline (1987). The History of Royal Holloway College, 1886-1986, 117. London: Constable.