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PEMBROKESHIRE WORTHIES.\ [

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PEMBROKESHIRE WORTHIES. VI. HENRY CEORCE ALLEN, K.C. Mr. H. G. AJJen, K.C., of Pa skeston, e\ iiiein ber of Parliament, chairman of Quarter. Sessions, has occupied so high a position in the more recent annals of the county, that our readers will be glad that we should place before them some slight record of his history, while he is still among us. Mr. Allen may be said to have an hereditary claim to the confidence of the county, and may be presumed to have acquired, from the rela- tions and friends who formed the amiable and accomplished society which frequented the home of his early years, some enlightenment of ideas, and cultivation of mind and manners suitable to the bringing up, and education of an English country gentleman of the most es- teemed and highest class. Mr. Allen's father, Mr. John Hensleigh Allen, of Cresselly, was educated at Westminster School and Trinity Colege, Cambridge, and in due time was called to the Bar and joined the Welsh circuits, of which, however, he did not long remain a member seeking legal practice, having succeeded to the family estate of Cres- selly in the year 1803, 011 the death of his father, who was an officer in the army, and had served in the seven years war, and was present at the battle of Minden, in the last year of (Jeoige the Second's reign, 1759. In lttuS Mr. John Hensleigh Allen served the office of High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire, and four years after in 1812 he married Gertrude, youngest daughter of Lord Robert Seymour, who died in 1825. At the General Election, 1812, the Hon. John Campbell (afterwards the first EariL Cawdor) and Mr. John Hensleigh Allen contested, as Liber- als, the County and Pembroke Borough seats respectively, with John Owen, afterwards the first baronet of the second creation, and were both beaten, but during the two next Parlia- ments, from 1818 to 1826, Mr. John Hensleigh Allen sat unopposed for the Pembroke Boroughs. For thirty years, from 1813 to 1843, the year of his death, Mr. John Hensleigh Allen was Chairman of Quarter Sessions. In uie year 1828 Mr. Allen's father sent his two eldest sons to Rugby School, having been greatly impressed by the great and increasing ruputation of Dr. Arnold, then lecentiy ap- pointed Head Master vi that School. The elder of these sons, Mr. Seymour Jt'hilipps Allen, with whose health the school was thought not to agree, was shortly atterwaids removed to Harrow School, but his brother, the subject of our sketch, remained for tne ensuing five years at llugby, the last two of those years being passed in Dr. Arnold's ouu form (the sixth), and under the superinten- dence and teaching of that most eminent master. Mr. Allen occupied in the sixth form a place between those two distinguished scholars and uivines, Deans Stanley and Vaughan. From Hugby Mr. Allen was sent to Christ Chuicji, Oxford, in lci.3.5, but. failed to obtain any university distinction in his Oxford career4, beyond the winning of one of live scholarships offerd annually to the members of his own College, and known as the Fell Exhibition," after the name of a lonner Dean who founued them. Of his four sucessful colleagues in that examination, two afterwards obtained Parlia- mentary distinction viz: E. C. Egerton, who became tile Lmder becretary of State, and Cornish who became the Right Hon. bir. J. R. Mowbray, and Chairman of the Selection Com- mittee of the House of Commons. Two of Air. Alien's aunts married sons of Josiaii Wedgwood, and two others married re- spectively bu. James Machintosh, and J. C. de. SismonUi. The liberal education resulting from these relationships, and the influence of the leaders of thought among whom his youth was passed, must have been of the greatest value in the formation of Mr. Allen's character. it is worth recording that Mr. John Heusieigil Allen about the year 1840, when 70 years of age, pu^-sneu a pamphlet on the Com Laws advocating the alteration of those Laws (the agitauon as to which was at its highest) by an abrogation of the sliding scale" then in force, Mr. Allen's contention being that a low fixed duty—he named seven sliilings per quarter—would be a sufficient protection to the British grown wheat. Mr. H. G. Allen was called to the Bar in 1841, and joined the South Wales. Circuit. This sketch is concerned with Mr. Allen's re- lations to the County rather than with his professional career, and it need only be said that at his Chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and subsequently at Paper Buildings, Temple, as well as on his ciicnit, he attained to lair po sition as conveyancer, lawyer, and advocate. As a conveyancer he had a love of brevity, which he practised as far as possible. He was for about twenty years a Revising Barrister of the South Wales Circuit and Recorder of Andover, and he took silk in 1879. The County knew his worth, and when Mr. Allen was able to give his services he became Chairman of Quarter Sessions in 1879, and con tinued in that office till 1894. When the County Council Act was passed Mr. Allen was made Chairman of the County Council, and served in that office from 1889 to 1892. From 1892 to 1894 Lord Kensington held the office with Mr. Allen as vice-chairman, and Mr. Allen was again put into the chair from 1894 to 1895. In 1895 at the age of 80 he retired from the high position he had occupied for fifteen or sixteen years, and no man has a greater right to look back with pride on. the public service he has rendered to his County. The position of Chairman of Quarter Sessions and of the County Council might conceivably be held by a mere figure head, but every reader of this appreciation will know that Mr. Alien was not only head, but also backbone, of the Court and of the Council. His legal and parliamentary experience made him master of all questions which required technical know ledge of procedure; his sound learning and training, his wide experience, and his natural sympathy enabled him to convince the headis and win the hearts of th%>e over whom he presided; and his dexterity, tact, and accom- plished method met and satisfied every de mand. Mr. Allen's parliamentary experience was not a long one. He fought and won as a Liberal the District Borough seat at the election of 1880 and 1885. When the Unionist Party was formed in 1886 he oined its ranks, and he ought to have been adopted as the Unionist candidate in 1886 in accordance with the com- pact then made between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, but he was not inclined to assert his position, and he retired from Parlia ment. Twenty years have passed, but the memory of his political services is kept green wherever Liberals meet in the County, and youngsters who at the last election for the first time exercised their power to vote heard his praises sung as the best member who had ever looked after the interests of the consti- tuency. This short and inadequate survey of Mr. Allen's life cannot close without mention of his favourite pursuit. Throughout his life he has been a breeder of horses. Everyone who knows the County knows the genuine admira- tion which Pembrokeshire men have for good horses, and good horsemen, and it will be ad- mitted tnat the Cresselly family are not easy to beat as Sportsmen, even when judged by the Pembrokeshire standard. Mr. Allen has bred some distinguished ani- mals, among others "The Hero," twice winner of the Ascot Gold Cup, and "Congress," thought by many to be the best steeplechaser of his day but an unlucky horse. If Mr. Allen were asked to-day whether he was more interested in the birth of a new foal, or in the birth of a new ministry, it is not at all certain that politics would eclipse sport.

JABEZ BALFOTO OUT. —

PRINCE ARTHUR IN CANADA.

MOONLIGHTING OUTRAGE. ---:-

CHILDREN BUHNED IN BED. .

KILLED BY CLIFF FALLS. .

WOMEN HELP THE LIFEBOAT.

TWIXT FROST AND FIRE.

" PROPHET" IN A POND.