Frank H. Allen

Frank Harmsworth Allen FRSC CChem (1944–2014) was an internationally recognised crystallographer.

Biography Frank Harmsworth Allen was born in 1944 in Reading, Berkshire and raised in Pangbourne, a village 6 miles away and close to the River Thames. He was the only child of George W Allen and Gwendolen Retta (née Whittamore).

He gained a First in chemistry and a PhD in crystallography at Imperial College London, and in 1968 moved to Vancouver to take up a post-doctoral fellowship, working with James Trotter at the University of British Columbia. Before long, they had established the structure and conformation of thalidomide.

A little earlier, in the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Olga Kennard had founded the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. She invited Frank Allen to join the group. He began in 1970, becoming Scientific Director and then executive director before retiring in 2008 and taking on the role of Emeritus Research Fellow. Member of many commissions and committees of the IUCr Member of the Council of the European Crystallographic Association Vice President of the British Crystallographic Association from 1997 to 2001 Member of the Board of Lhasa Limited Member of the editorial board for Springer Publishing's Structural Chemistry journal.

Personal life Robin Taylor, CCDC Emeritus Research Fellow, noted that

Frank married Sandra J Newman (Sandy) in 1966. They had three children: Ashley, Andrew and Stuart. Ashley was killed in a road accident in 1988, aged 20.

Frank Harmsworth Allen died on 10 November 2014. His funeral took place on the 27th at St Andrew's, Histon.