[3] She was a musician, a puppeteer, a conductor with the London Labour Choral Union,[4] and wrote extensively on the origins of English folk song, clashing with the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams on the subject.
[5] She published editions of Henry Purcell and Orlando Gibbons and her unpublished manuscript on the Irish origins of English folksong is held at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.
[6] Her circle of friends and collaborators included the composer Alan Bush, artists Enid Marx and Wilfred Franks, music critic John Amis and poet Douglas Newton.
[7] She was a close friend of the composer Michael Tippett who dedicated two of his compositions to her, Piano Sonata no.1 (1936–38) and The Heart's Assurance (1950-51); the latter was written in response to Allinson's death.
"[10] Through much of the 1930s Allinson was involved in a same-sex relationship with Judith Wogan,[11] a producer of plays and owner of the Grafton Theatre on London's Tottenham Court Road.