Thomas William Allen

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. His sister Edith married another classicist John Percival Postgate, who was her tutor at Girton College, Cambridge. 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. In June of the next year he was elected to a classical scholarship at The Queen's College, Oxford, matriculating on 28 October 1881. He earned honours: first class in Mods (Honour Moderations) 1882 and first class in Literae Humaniores 1885. 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." 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. 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.