Early Life
William Allen was the eldest son of devout Quakers Job and Margaret Allen. They were a well-to-do family, Job earning his wealth as a silk manufacturer. As a young man, in the 1790s, William Allen became interested in science. He attended meetings of various scientific societies, including lectures at St. Thomas's Hospital and Guy's Hospital, becoming a member of 'The Chemical Society' of the latter establishment.
In the first year of the new century, William Allen's father died, and the family silk business was thereafter managed by his father's assistant. This left William free to grow his own business in the field of pharmacy, gradually becoming independent and establishing his own business. In 1802 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society and lectured on chemistry at Guy's Hospital. A year later he was made president of the 'Physical Society' at Guy's, and on the advice of Humphry Davy and John Dalton also accepted an invitation from the Royal Institution to become one of its lecturers.
In 1807, Allen's original research (on carbon) enabled him to be successfully proposed for election to Fellowship of the Royal Society, bringing him into contact with those who were publishing much of the original scientific research of the day. This strengthened his ties with the eminent Humphry Davy, and in due course with his long-standing friend Luke Howard who was likewise elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society, though some years later.
Read more about this topic: William Allen (Quaker)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The deadly monotony of Christian country life where there are no beggars to feed, no drunkards to credit, which are among the moral duties of Christians in cities, leads as naturally to the outvent of what Methodists call “revivals” as did the backslidings of the people in those days.”
—Corra May Harris (1869–1935)