Elias Allen
Elias Allen was an English maker of sundials and scientific instruments.
Allen was apprenticed in 1602 to Charles Whitwell, the London copper engraver, instrument maker and clockmaker, citizen of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, whose premisses were just outside Temple Bar, London, near St Clement [Danes Church]. After his master died, Allen established himself in a workshop beside the church there. 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 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.