William Edward David Allen (6 January 1901 – 18 September 1973) was a British scholar, Foreign Service officer, politician and businessman, best known as a historian of South Caucasus. He was closely involved in the politics of Northern Ireland, and had fascist tendencies.
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Born in London, he was educated at Eton College. He was a military correspondent during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and the Rif War (1925). Allen stood unsuccessfully in Fermanagh and Tyrone at 1922 general election,[1] but was elected seven years later on his next attempt, at the 1929 general election as the Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) for Belfast West.[2]
He defected from the Unionists in 1931, to join Sir Oswald Mosley’s New Party, and did not contest the 1931 general election.[2]
He was a close friend of Mosley and helped him to pursue his fascist ambitions from behind the scenes, by supporting him financially and by contributing mainly anonymous articles to The Blackshirt, including "The Letters of Lucifer". WED Allen also wrote a book BUF, Oswald Mosley and British Fascism (1934) under the pen name of James Drennan. It has frequently been reported that he was an MI5 informant but this now appears to be false.[3]
In the pre-World War II years, he traveled a lot and conducted extensive research on the history of the peoples of the Caucasus and Anatolia. In 1930, along with Sir Oliver Wardrop, he founded the Georgian Historical Society which published its own journal Georgica dedicated to Kartvelian studies.
Allen was a Foreign Service officer from 1943 until he stepped down and returned to his native Ulster in 1949. Together with his two younger brothers, he ran David Allen's, a major bill-posting company.
He was married: (1) from 1922 to 1932, to Lady Phyllis Edith King (1897-1947), daughter of Lionel Fortescue King, 3rd Earl of Lovelace (1865-1929)[4] (2) from 1932 to 1939, to Paula Gellibrand (1898-1986), once Cecil Beaton's favourite models, formerly the wife of the Marquis de Casa Maury and formerly the wife of Ivan Wilkie Brooks; and (3) from 1943, to Nathalie Maximovna.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by Robert Lynn |
Member of Parliament for Belfast West 1929–1931 |
Succeeded by Alexander Browne |