James Allen (1806 – 21 March 1886), nicknamed "Dismal Jemmy", was an English-born writer, journalist and newspaper owner in Australia and New Zealand.
He was for some time a reporter on the London Morning Post, and was an associate of Charles Dickens.
[1] In December 1841 he published the first South Australian News-letter, a compendium of statistics on the new colony, for new immigrants to send "home" to Britain.
[2] In 1842 he purchased for £600 the South Australian Register from George Stevenson, who was withdrawing from journalism[3] and sold it to John Stephens[1] and in 1845 returned to England.
He then went to New Zealand, and conducted the Auckland Evening News until 1870, when he returned to Victoria and purchased The Camperdown Chronicle, of which he remained owner till 1880.