James Allen (educator)

His father, also James Allen, drowned in an accident in 1690, after which his mother, Elizabeth, moved the family to Westminster and remarried.

During his time at the college much rebuilding was carried out and the estates run by the charitable foundation were carefully administered.

Most of his predecessors, both in the role of Master and Warden, as well as most of the former Fellows of the college, had taken advantage of the privileged position they found themselves in to live the pleasantest life possible, whilst for the most part ignoring the wishes of the college's founder, Edward Alleyn, to ensure that every poor scholar would be adequately prepared for going out in the world, be that into an apprenticeship or to university.

James Allen, however, was very conscious of the Foundation's duty as laid out in the statutes penned by Edward Alleyn.

This was the seed that would eventually grow into the present day James Allen's Girls' School which dates its foundation back to this date in 1741 (although the James Allen Foundation only ceased to be responsible for boys after the boys were moved to "Dulwich College Grammar School" in 1842).