Allen, Oswald

b Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland (Cumbria) 1816, d K Lonsdale 1878. Educated at home in Kirkby Lonsdale and suffering from a spinal disorder from boyhood onwards, he followed his father into the banking profession. A brief remission enabled him to move to Glasgow, where he worked in the Scottish Stock Exchange, but recurring ill-health forced him to return. In 1848 he joined the Lancashire Banking Co, eventually becoming its manager. While shut in at home in the severe winter of 1859–60 he took the opportunity of assembling his 148 hymns, published in 1861 as Hymns of the Christian Life. James Allen (qv) was his great uncle. No.677.