CLASSICS AUTHORS

Previous page

Allen, Reginald C.


Reginald Clifford Allen, 1st Baron Allen of Hurtwood (9 May 1889 – 3 March 1939), known as Clifford Allen, was a British politician and prominent pacifist.

Contents

[edit] Career

The son of Walter Allen, he was Secretary and General Manager of the Daily Citizen between 1911 and 1915. He was Chairman of the No-Conscription Fellowship in the First World War, and was imprisoned for conscientious objection three times. After the war he was Treasurer and Chairman of the Independent Labour Party between 1922 and 1926, Chairman of the New Leader between 1922 and 1926 and director of the Daily Herald between 1925 and 1930.

He was raised to the peerage as Baron Allen of Hurtwood, of Hurtwood in the County of Surrey on 18 January 1932,[1] as a boost to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's representation in the House of Lords. In January 1935 Allen wrote of German dictator Adolf Hitler after he had met him: "I believe Herr Hitler's position in the country is unassailable. His sincerity is tremendous...I am convinced he genuinely desires peace...Germany's aggressive words and warlike phrases do not represent her intentions".[2]

[edit] Personal life

Lord Allen of Hurtwood married Marjory Gill on 17 December 1921. They had one child. Never having fully recovered from the privations of his imprisonment during the First World War, he died in a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1939, aged 49, when the peerage became extinct.

[edit] References

  1. London Gazette: no. 33792, p. 484, 22 January 1932.
  2. Gilbert Murray, Plough My Own Furrow. The Story of Lord Allen of Hurtwood as told through his own writings and correspondence (London: Longmans, 1965), pp. 358-359.

[edit] Further reading

  • David Boulton: Objection Overruled, Macgibbon & Kee, 1967
  • Thomas C Kennedy: The hound of conscience : a history of the No-Conscription Fellowship, 1914-1919, Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 1981 ISBN 0938626019

[edit] External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Richard Collingham Wallhead
Chairman of the Independent Labour Party
1922–1926
Succeeded by
James Maxton
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
New Creation
Baron Allen of Hurtwood
1932–1939
Succeeded by
Title Extinct

Books By This Author



Web Cosimobooks



Book of the Month

Classic of the Month

Share this page:

Join our RSS Feed
Join us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Read us on Scribd
Find us on Pinterest
Find us on ReKiosk


Payment Processing

 

 


News| Links| Site Map| Terms & Conditions| Contact Us