Joseph Stanley Allen [also known as J. S. Allen] was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire England on 15 March 1898. In 1915 he entered the School of Architecture at Liverpool University, from where he graduated with a B.Arch. in 1923 and was awarded the RIBA Athens Bursary. In 1923 he went to the USA to do postgraduate research. He was also employed by George B. Post & Sons on the design of the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan and by Donn Barber on the design of the New York Cotton Exchange.
Allen returned to Liverpool in 1924 where he assisted Herbert James Rowse (1887-1963) in the design of the India Buildings (1924-28).
In 1929 Allen was appointed a lecturer at Liverpool University. He was subsequently Head at Leeds School of Architecture from 1933 to 1945; Professor and Head of the Department of Town and Country Planning, Newcastle University from 1945 to 1963; and Professor Emeritus at Newcastle University from 1963.
He was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1922. He died in Ovingham, Northumberland on 15 March 1997.
Post Office in Parkgate, Wirral (1935); and Knightsbridge Court, a magistrates' court in Chesterfield, Derbyshire (1956)
Allen, Joseph Stanley and Mattocks, Robert Henry. Industry and Prudence A Plan for Accrington. Accrington: Borough of Accrington, 1950
'A feast of decoration: Heinz Gallery exhibition on George Aitchison' Official Architecture & Planning June 1966 pp. 867-872
'Durham colleges extension: West Building, containing the new mathematics & geography wing and the Applebey Lecture Theatre; Architect: Joseph S. Allen' Building October 1952 pp.372-380
Harwood, Elain. Space Hope and Brutalism. English Architecture 1945-1975. New Haven, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press in association with Historic England for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2015
Sharples, Joseph, Powers, Alan and Shippobottom, Michael. Charles Reilly & the Liverpool School of Architecture 1904-1933. Catalogue of an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 25 October 1996 - 2 February 1997. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996 p. 165 [Contains other references to Allen, unfortunately, the catalogue is not indexed]