Elias Allen



Elias Allen (c.1588 in Tonbridge – March 1653 in London) was an English maker of sundials and scientific instruments.

Allen was apprenticed to a London clockmaker in 1602 and, after his master died, established himself in a workshop beside St Clement Danes Church, the Strand. He made instruments for James I and Charles I, among others, and was associated with the mathematicians Edmund Gunter and William Oughtred. His apprentices included Ralph Greatorex. He served from 19 January 1637 until 29 July 1638 as Master of the London Clockmakers' Company. He died in March 1653 and was buried in St Clement Danes.

In 1638 William Oughtred wrote a letter to Allen asking him to make the earliest known Oughtred slide rule, and indicating that Oughtred himself had never made one. Oughtred writes, "I have here sent you directions (as you requested me being at Twickenham) about the making of the two rulers. [...] I would gladly see one of them when it is finished, which yet I never have done." The instrument does not survive, but there is a reverse print of it.