["Personal", The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), Wednesday 13 September 1916, page 6]
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Mrs. Sarah Ann Allen, who died at Hall-street, Semaphore, on Monday last, was born at Roughan, County of Tyrone, Ireland, on October 29, 1829, her father being William Galway, a builder, who in 1837 left Londonderry, Ireland, for Sydney in the ship Adam Lodge and arrived in Sydney with his wife and family on July 12, 1837. For a year the family lived in Sydney, then moved to Maitland, on the Hunter River, and in December, 1847, left Maitland for Port Adelaide, sailing from Sydney in the paddle steamer Juno, via Boyd Town, Melbourne, and Portland. Port Adelaide was then not 10 years old, and the footpath of the North-parade was the embankment which held back the sea water. In 1850 Mrs. Allen married Captain Thomas Allen, who arrived in Port Adelaide in 1843 as mate of the brig Elizabeth Buckham. From 1850 to 1858 Mrs. Allen failed with her husband on the coast of Australia, in the Malay Archipelago, and from Madras to Cambodia and Manila, in the brigs Punch and Empress and the schooner Swallow, foregathering part of the time with Alfred Russel Wallace, whom they met in Macassar, then collecting material for his books. He taught Mrs. Allen some of the Malay language. In 1856, in Singapore, Captain and Mrs. Allen met the notorious Bully Hayes, and thereafter, till June, 1864, encountered him in various places. In l854, during a voyage to Manila from Sydney, off St. Andrew's Island, their ship was attacked by Malay pirates, whom they beat off with two brass cannon, which they fired upon the pirates, Mrs. Allen making cartridges out of her children's socks, which she filled with powder. This kept the pirates at bay till a breeze sprang up and enabled the ship to escape. The pirates were captured by the Spaniards, and Captain Allen saw them in Zamboanga on his return voyage from Manila. From 1858 to 1875 Captain and Mrs. Allen sailed the coast of Australia and to New Caledonia. Captain Allen then left the sea and died in 1885. The late shipping reporter, Mr. Richard Jagoe, was an old friend, and in June, 1871, wrote "The Convict Brig," dealing with an experience of Captain Allen when carrying convicts from Port Adelaide to Hobart. Mrs. Allen had a retentive memory, and to within a week of her death she could entertain her visitors with stories of Irish, New South Wales, and South Australian people and happenings. She had several children, but only one survives her--Mr. Seaborn Allen, of George Wills & Co., Port Adelaide, who was born on board the ship Schah Jehan in a hurricane off Cape Northumberland. Another son, Captain T. M. Allen, was lost with all hands in the steamship Koombana, of whioh he was master, on the north-west coast of Australia in 1912.
