(1882–1964).

Soldier and administrator.

A new biography of Allen, Stephen Shepherd appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Stephen Shepherd Allen was born at Cheadle, Staffordshire, on 2 August 1882 and educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Joining the British Army, he rose rapidly to the rank of Major in the 6th Regiment by 1914, but transferred to the NZEF in 1915. By 1917 he was a Lieutenant-Colonel, winning a D.S.O. with Bar, 1918. From 1920 to 1924 he commanded the 1st N.Z. Infantry, and again in 1933–37. In 1928 he was appointed for a four-year term as Administrator of Western Samoa, and from 1932 to 1936 he was prominent in transport administration. In the Second World War he was again active, first with the British Army in England and then with the New Zealand Forces in the Mediterranean. He was Mayor of Morrins-ville, 1927–28, and Grand Master of the Freemasons N.Z.C., 1948–50. A graduate in arts and in law, he contributed papers to the Kipling Journal and published Early Morrinsville (1959).

In 1919 he was awarded C.M.G. and in 1933, following his term of office in Samoa, he was created a K.B.E. He was killed in a motor accident, near Maramarua, on 4 November 1964.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• New Zealand Herald, 5 Nov 1964 (Obit).