Alfred Walter Henry Allen, Baron Allen of Fallowfield, CBE (7 July 1914 – 14 January 1985)[1] was a British trade unionist and governor of the BBC.
Born in Bristol, he was educated at East Bristol School and worked then for the Bristol Co-operative Society until 1940, when he joined the Royal Air Force.[2] After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Allen left the Force as a sergeant and was chosen as an area organiser of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers in the year thereafter.[2] Following its merger into the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers in 1947, he became a national officer in 1951.[2] Allen was elected the Union's general secretary in 1962, a post he held for seventeen years until 1979.[3] In the 1967 Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Allen was a member of the general council of the Trades Union Congress and in 1974 was nominated its president.[4] On 10 July of the latter year, he was created a life peer with the title Baron Allen of Fallowfield, of Fallowfield, in Greater Manchester. In 1977, Allen served in the Board of Governors of the BBC.[5]
In 1940, he married Ruby Millicent Hounsell and they had a son and a daughter.[2]