George W. G. Allen

Major George W. G. Allen, MC, FSA (12 January 1891 – November 1940) was a British engineer who pioneered aerial photography for the purpose of archaeological research.

During the First World War, Allen served in the Royal Tank Corps and was awarded the Military Cross.

Piloting his aircraft and using a hand‐made camera, he made aerial pictures mostly taken between 1933 and 1938 of known, and previously unknown, unrecorded archaeological sites.

[4][5][6] He took about 2000 photographs, mostly oblique, taken from an altitude of only 300–450 metres,[6] a contribution that enabled interpretation by O. G. S. Crawford[7][8] of archaeological sites in Wiltshire, Hampshire, Kent, Somerset, Hertfordshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire, but most especially in Oxfordshire.

[9] His success in detecting such sites as the Icknield Way was due to his observation and recording of what was revealed by relief in raking light and as the change in seasons and rainfall patterns altered vegetation cover, which was often densest where covered-over excavations had held moisture.