THE 
ESSEX NATURALIST: 
BEING THE 
3ourttdf of f0e (Bseer §tefb €Tu6. 
VOLUME XVII. 
MORE ABOUT DR. BENJAMIN ALLEN (16661738), 
OF BRAINTREE, NATURALIST. 
By MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S. 
[WITH PLATE I.J 
[Read 25 th November 1911.] 
I N February last, there appeared in these pages a lengthy 
account 1 by myself of that interesting old Essex natura¬ 
list, Dr. Benjamin Allen, of Braintree, the friend and neighbour 
of both John Ray. and Samuel Dale, my information having 
been derived mainly from a volume of Allen’s “ Common-place 
Book,” which was, and still is, in the possession of our member, 
the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy. 
Among much other matter, I gave 2 an extract from Allen’s 
will, in which he made a special bequest to his descendants 
in the terms following :— 
“ My Note Books or Manuscripts of Medicine and private Methods of 
Cure, disclosing much of the Practise of Physick (principally the two 
vellum folios numbered One and Two, in letters at length, . . .), as 
a separate matter from Goods, I ordain not to be sold, but preserved in 
some sufficient hand of one of the Family, in the Practise of Physick or 
Pharmacy, under the oversight of my Executors and their Executors, 
for the use and benefit of my Family hereafter, to see they be secure from 
losing or making away or parting with any way out of their custody ; . ." 
This show’s clearly the very high value Allen set upon the 
two books in question. 
It was evident that the volume I was describing w T as one 
or other of the “ two vellum folios ” which Allen thus bequeathed, 
although it no longer bore any such inscription as “ No. One ” 
or “No. Two.” Consequently, I remarked 3 that “it would 
i Essex Nat., xvi., pp. 145-175 (1911). 
2 Op. cit., p. 174. 
3 Loc. cit. 
