p>Left: The Rev. Robert Allen, Rector of Barcombe 1826-1877
Right: The Rev. Alfred Allen, Curate of Barcombe 1857-1877

The Reverent Robert Allen

Robert Allen, the eldest son of Robert and Mary Allen of Lymington Hampshire, was born on 13 Feb 1793. His father was of independent means and served twice as mayor of Lymington. The family might have been related in some way to the Hon John Forster Alleyne of Barbados who was an executor, with Robert Allen his son, of the elder Allen's estate.

Robert Allen was educated at Winchester School and New College Oxford where he remained as a fellow until his appointment to the living of Barcombe in 1826.

In 1838 he was instrumental, together with an influential group of his parishioners, in setting up a fund to establish a new church to serve the north part of his extensive parish. Only a few years later, in 1841, Allen was no longer permanently resident in the parish and he was vilified in a letter published in the local press for having taken up all the £985 tithes available to him (the Barcombe tithe apportionment had been assessed in 1840). The anonymous author noted that not only did the parish lack a curate but also a school and the promised new chapel; in addition little money was given to charity and none spent in local businesses to support the local community. The letter led to a long period of dispute within the parish that was not resolved in Allen's lifetime. He was unpopular with many of his congregation who, on one occasion, petitioned the Bishop to help them because they found his speech unintelligible. It is possible that he suffered from some severe physical problem that affected his speech.

Allen's early training in civil law appears to have created a particularly disputatious character. A plot of land for the proposed new chapel had been donated by Lord Liverpool. The site was acceptable to the other contributors to the fund including Captain Richardson of Sutton Hurst who had made the largest donation. However, despite the fact that no one else had any doubts, Allen was convinced that the title to the land was unsound, and would not initiate the construction of the planned church there; instead he purchased a plot of land, now the site of Rest Harrow at Spithurst, on which to build. The laying of the foundation stone of this new church in 1868 sparked the final dispute with his leading parishioners.

Since Allen was never permanently resident in the parish. He appointed a series of curates with whom he argued on a regular basis. He finally appointed a relative, possibly his nephew, Alfred Allen (MA Pembroke College, Cambridge) with the intention of implementing his plan, which was implicit from the time the fund for the new church was set up, to divide the parish. The division, if implemented, would have allowed the possibility of the younger Allen serving the newly created parish at Spithurst. When the formal proposal for the division was put to the Bishop, and it became widely known among his parishioners, the whole dispute about the provision of new church was brought to a head. The original donors and the Diocesan Association who held the fund all refused to agree to the money being used to finance the completion of the Rector's church on the new site. Because of Allen's determination not to give in to his dominant parishioners the dispute about the use of the original fund to pay for the Rector's church on his new site ended up in chancery, this despite the fact that many of the original donors including Captain Richardson were dead. By then Allen himself was an old man. The final decision of the court was not decisive and the whole dispute appears to have become doramant. Following Allen's death in 1877 the will of his parishioners prevailed. His church on the new site was dismantled and the present St Bartholomew's, largely financed by Frederick Shenstone of Sutton Hall, was built on the original site. Alfred Allen the curate never received preferment. The only later reference to him, the census of 1881, shows that aged 61 he was curate at Norton juxta Twycross in Leicestershire.

At the reopening of the old parish church after the refurbishments there the then Bishop of Chichester summed up Allen's character admirably, 'your late Rector earnestly wished to do what was right but his self-will and perverseness led him into antagonism with those he desired to serve'. Allen died at his sister's house in Lymington and was buried there. He left the bulk of his substantial estate to his sister, including the rent from a property in Barbados, a further confirmation of the family link with the Caribbean.

Sources
ESRO PAR 235/4
WSRO EpI/48
ESRO MOB 655-666, 673-684
Ancestry.com 1881 England census

Tithe Data

Rectory & Pleasure
ground (The Old Rectory)

1841 Census

Tenement Analysis

Buildings

Archaeology

Old Maps

Further Information