JOHN HUGH ALIEN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1711, 30 December 1919, Page 3

JOHN HUGH ALIEN.

A MEMOIR. LONDON, Nov. 0. ihi'ro will bo many New Zealanders, upsides liits own friends, who, when they have read the memoir which Infs just been published by Mrs W. U. Montgomery, will deeply regret the early death of John Hugh Allen, son of .Sir Janies Allen, who was killed in 1915 ,in Gallipoli (says the Rost’s London correspondent). Mrs Montgomery brings together in the volume, which inis just been published by Edward Arnold, a. series of letters written by her brother during the years which he spent at Cambridge and after. Most of them were from Cambridge, and they are full of most interesting references to prominent figures fn political life of the Old Country. Mr Allen had thoughts of going into polities in New Zealand, and lie had studied hard at Cambridge to lit hint for a political life. lie became acquainted with Lionel Curtis, the founder of the Hound Table movement, ayd did much for the movement at the headquarters in London and as visitor to the groups in i New Zealand. lie read for the Lar, and | when war broke out was at an assize in the Southern -Circuit. On 25th August, 1914, he joined the Inns of Court 0.T.C., ami a few weeks later got Ids commission in the Worcester Regiment. For some months lie was in active training at Looe, in Cornwall, and it was a great grief _to / him when, instead of going oversea witli the men ho had trained, he was picked out with half a dozen other cftlccrs ami sciit: to join other battalions in Gallipoli, He was attached to the Essex Regiment, and had only been a week or two m .the line at Cape Hellos when he was;-killed. Not the least interesting part of the book is Mrs Montgomery's account of the boyhood of her brother. It contains many sidelights on the political world in which Sir James Allen was already prominent. Wanganui Collegiate School, says Mrs Montgomery, “was the first in. New Zealand to follow th(> hygienic modes of Lorctlo. There was an air of stronuousnoss and lack of academical dignity about the boys and masters who made alive old rambling wooden building. Walter Lmpson was a man who possessed that rare quality —charm : even a young scapegrace wits aware of this. No boy ever bore a grudge against him for any sudden outburst of wrath or scorn. His sense of humour was keen, his mind worked quickly: a certain love of the theatrical made him a picturesque figure to his scholars.” In the college debating society, presided over by Mr Empson, “John on every possible occasion caught the Speaker’s eye,; and thundered forth his, words as lie used Mcb in the nursery. Ho had no facility for sneaking, but appears to have been driven by some force, of which be was then hardly conscious, to use every means to encompass what was afterwards the ambition of his life. At a time when the Imperial ideal was yet tn most minds tt lia/v impracticability it was grasped in its tree significance by Walter Empson, am bo never let an opportunity slip 01. unpaid mg to bis boys his own enthusiasm amt aspirations.” "