Professor Frederick Martin Brice Allen, M.D., F.R.C.P
Bloomfield Auctions are honoured to act on behalf of the estate of the late Professor Frederick Martin Brice Allen. A man who has held a most illustrious career and a man who was one of the most highly esteemed physicians in the United Kingdom.
A graduate of Queen’s University, he took an honours degree and was Musgrave research student in 1923-24. He was appointed to the Nuffield Chair of Child Health at the university in 1948, and he was also a member of the Nuffield Regionalisation Council: A recognised authority on the treatment of children’s complaints, Professor Allen was a senior physician to the Royal Belfast Hospital for sick children until his retirement in 1963, physician in charge of infants to the Royal Maternity Hospital, and honorary director of the Belfast Child Guidance Clinic. Formerly he was hospital officer to the ministry of home affairs. He was a member of the Northern Ireland Hospitals authority and the former Tuberculosis Authority.
Professor Allen was an active member of several professional organisations, including the British Paediatric Association and the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1939 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a former, president of the Ulster Medical Society.
Towards the end of World War 1 he was appointed a Surgeon Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Afterwards for 10 years -1925-35- he served in the Ulster Division of the RNVR and attained the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant-commander.
Professor Allen was a member of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and of the British Paediatric Association, of which he was president I 1955-6. He was a Fellow of the Ulster Medical Society and its president in1955-6. For many years an active member of the B.M.A., he was a member of council from 1939 to 1942 and of the Consultants and Specialists Committee from 1943 to 1948. Honorary secretary of the Northern Ireland Branch from 1934 to 1940, he was its president in 1951-2. In 1937 he was the local secretary of the B.M.A. Annual Meeting in Belfast. Among his published writings his Aids to Disease of Children reached its tenth edition in 1957. Professor Allen is survived by his wife, who is also a doctor.
I.F. writes: As a colleague of Fred Allen for almost 40 years I can speak of his great loyalty, which embraced his hospitals, his university, the B.M.A., the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, his friends, and his home. A founder member of the R.N.V.R., he served as a surgeon probationer in the first world war, and for many years was attached to H.M.S Caroline, the R.N.V.R. training ship in Ulster. In 1937 the B.M.A. held its annual meeting in Belfast, and its success was largely due to Freds untiring efforts and administrative ability. He devoted his energies for almost a year to making this meeting a memorable occasion. During the second world war he was put in charge of air-raid precautions In Belfast, using a room in his home with strengthened walls and multiple telephones as an operational centre. Anything he did he did with enthusiasm. Fred was a founder member of the British Paediatric Association, and he never missed a meeting. Just before retiring he was elected president, and that year he was also president of the Ulster Medical Society. He made it a memorable year indeed.
From 1923 for 40 years, he devoted his life to the care of sick children. His crowded outpatient clinics testified to the value the doctors in Ulster put on his opinion, and he was in great demand when their own children became ill. He took a particular interest in the training of nurses and was responsible for founding the infant and premature baby units at the Royal Maternity Hospital. When, with the help of Lord Nuffield, a chair of child health was founded at Queen’s University, Professor Allen was the natural choice for the post.
