Clifford Allen, 1st Baron Allen of Hurtwood


Reginald Clifford Allen, 1st Baron Allen of Hurtwood, known as Clifford Allen, was a British politician, leading member of the Independent Labour Party, and prominent pacifist.

Early life and education

The son of Walter Allen, a draper, Reginald Clifford Allen was born in Newport, then in Monmouthshire in Wales. The family later moved to Bristol, on account of Walter's business. Allen was educated at Berkhamsted School, University College, Bristol and, from 1908 to 1911, at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Having initially identified as a Conservative, in his final year at Cambridge he was chair of the university's Fabian Society.

Career

Shortly after coming down from Cambridge with a third-class degree, he was made Secretary and then General Manager of the Daily Citizen between 1911 and 1915. He was Chairman of the No-Conscription Fellowship in the First World War, and was imprisoned as a conscientious objector three times. In 1917 he became so ill that he was released from prison where he set up house with Catherine Marshall who was also ill from overwork. Marshall hoped that their relationship would continue but Allen ended their partnership.
After the war he was Treasurer and Chairman of the Independent Labour Party between 1922 and 1926, Chairman of the New Leader between 1922 and 1926 and director of the Daily Herald between 1925 and 1930.
He was raised to the peerage as Baron Allen of Hurtwood, of Hurtwood in the County of Surrey, on 18 January 1932, to boost Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's National Labour representation in the House of Lords. In 1934 he co-founded the Next Five Years Group seeking a progressive centre-left re-alignment in British politics.
In January 1935 Allen wrote of German dictator Adolf Hitler after he had met him:
Despite his championing of the cause of appeasement, he strongly condemned Nazi brutality and anti-semitism. For instance, in the House of Lords in July 1938 he declared:
His efforts to intercede with the German government trying to save Hans Litten, a prominent opponent of the Nazi regime, from Dachau concentration camp were however unsuccessful.

Personal life

Clifford Allen married Marjory Gill on 17 December 1921. They had one child, a daughter born in 1922, Joan Collete, known as Polly. Never having fully recovered from the privations of his imprisonment during the First World War when he had contracted tuberculosis, Lord Allen of Hurtwood died in a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1939, aged 49, the peerage becoming extinct.

Publications