Sir Carleton Kemp Allen (7 September 1887 – 11 December 1966) was an Australian-born professor and Warden of Rhodes House, University of Oxford. Entry by his successor as Warden of Rhodes House, E.T. Williams, in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''

Early life and student career

Carleton Allen, or 'C.K.' as he came to be known, was born in Carlton, Victoria, the third son of William Allen, a Congregational minister and the younger brother of Leslie Holdsworth Allen. He was three when his family moved to Sydney, where he attended Newington College (1900–1906). In 1903 and 1904 he was awarded the Wigram Allen Scholarship, awarded by Sir George Wigram Allen, sharing it in 1904 with Howard McKern. At the end of 1905 he was named Dux of the College and received the Schofield Scholarship. At the University of Sydney he read classics and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1910. Having won a scholarship to Oxford, he attended New College and studied jurisprudence under Sir Paul Vinogradoff. He took first-class honours in 1912 and was elected Eldon Law Scholar in 1913.

Military and academic career

Allen was a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in the 13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, in World War I, was wounded, and was awarded the Military Cross in 1918. At the end of the war, he was elected Stowell Civil Law Fellow of University College, Oxford and he remained a fellow of that college until his death. In 1926, he spent a year as Tagore professor at the University of Calcutta and published his lectures from that time as ''Law in the Making'' in 1927. This compilation became an established classic and he completed a seventh edition in 1965. In 1929 he was appointed Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, but in 1931 became the second warden of Rhodes House. He filled this office with great distinction and he and his wife, Dorothy Frances Allen (1896–1959), whom he had married at Oxford in 1922, won the affection and respect of generations of Rhodes scholars. Dorothy Allen's memoirs, ''Sunlight and Shadow'' (1960) (which Allen brought to publication after her death), give an account of life at Rhodes House. On his retirement in 1952 he was knighted. He died at Oxford and was survived by his second wife, Hilda, whom he had married in 1962, and by two children of his first marriage, a son and daughter (the writer

Rosemary Dinnage Rosemary Dinnage (née Allen; 17 January 1928 – 10 July 2015) was a British author and critic. She was listed by ''The Observer'' as one of Britain's top 300 intellectuals in 2011. Biography Rosemary Dinnage was born in Oxford and grew up in ...

). A portrait of Sir Carleton Allen hangs in Rhodes House, Oxford, and images of him are held by the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Publications

* The Judgment of Paris: A Comedy (1924) * Oh! Mr Leacock (1925) * Law in the Making (1927) * Bureaucracy Triumphant (1931) * Legal Duties and other essays in Jurisprudence (1931) * Democracy and the Individual (1943) * Law and Orders (1945) * The Queen's Peace (1953), his Hamlyn Lectures * Law and Disorders (1954) * Aspects of Justice (1958); he also wrote two novels.

References

Bibliography

* David Macmillan, Newington College 1863–1963 (Sydney, 1963) * Peter Swain, Newington Across the Years 1893–1988 (Sydney, 1988) * Lord Elton, The First Fifty Years of the Rhodes Trust and the Rhodes Scholarships, 1903–1953 (Oxford, 1955) * Dorothy Allen, Sunlight and Shadow: An Autobiography (Oxford University Press: London, 1960) {{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Carleton 1887 births 1966 deaths Australian military personnel of World War I British Army personnel of World War I Middlesex Regiment officers Australian recipients of the Military Cross Australian Knights Bachelor Australian Congregationalists Australian educators Australian people of English descent People educated at Newington College Wardens of Rhodes House Fellows of University College, Oxford University of Calcutta faculty Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature English justices of the peace Members of Lincoln's Inn Alumni of New College, Oxford Professors of Jurisprudence (University of Oxford)