William Allen (Royal Navy officer)

[2] He was on board the 36-gun HMS Leda in August 1811 for the capture of Java, and in June 1813 during the successful attack on the pirate base at Sambas, Borneo.

Though Allen cannot be blamed for any of the misfortunes of this expedition, he was on his return placed on half-pay, and retired from the service, as rear-admiral, in 1862, dying at Weymouth 23 January 1864.

[citation needed] In 1848, Allen with Thomas Richard Heywood Thomson published, in two volumes as A Narrative of the Expedition sent by H.M.'s Government to the River Niger in 1841.

[2] In 1846, Allen published a pamphlet on Mutual Improvement, advocating the institution of good-conduct prizes to be awarded by ballot by the community divided for the purpose into small groups; and in 1849 a Plan for the immediate Extinction of the Slave Trade, for the Relief of the West India Colonies, and for the Diffusion of Civilisation and Christianity in Africa by the co-operation of Mammon with Philanthropy, a scheme of compulsory "apprenticeship" or "temporary bondage".

Allen also brought out two volumes of Picturesque Views on Ascension Island (1835) and the River Niger (1840), with papers in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vols.