ALLEYN, Allen, EDWARD (1566-1626). An English actor, theatre manager, and the founder of Dulwich College. Born in the parish of St. Botolph, just out of London, he went upon the stage shortly before Shakespeare came from Stratford. Alleyn won rapid success, especially in tragedy, playing among other roles the Jew in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, and also Tambur laine and Faustus. He owned several play houses, and in 1592 married the step-daughter of Philip Henslowe (q.v.), with whom he was asso ciated in building the Fortune Theatre and in various other enterprises, including the profit able business of bear-baiting. Ac his wealth in creased, he ceased acting and became a manager. But though he seems to have been so much the favorite actor of his time that, as was said, "The name of Ned Allen on the common stage was able to make an ill matter good," his chief claim to remembrance is as the munificent founder of the College of God's Gift, at Dulwich. His motive in this benefaction has been ascribed by tradi tion to an apparition of the devil, who ap peared to him as he was playing that character in a theatre, but his well-known liberality and the fact that he was childless are more to the point. The college was begun in 1613, and in
1619, after some obstruction on the part of Lord Chancellor' Bacon, who wished the King to prefer the foundation of two lectureships at Oxford and Cambridge, it obtained the royal charter. Here for several years Alleyn resided, and managed the affairs of the institution. Alleyn was a friend of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and a patron of Dekker (q.v.) and other writers. He was buried in the chapel of the college he had founded, and among its possessions are his portrait and a collection, in part, however, spuri ous, of his business papers. Consult: J. P. Collier, Memoirs of Edward Allcyn (London, 1841) ; J. P. Collier, Annals of the Stage (Lon don, 1819) ; Warner, Catalogue of the .11anu scripts and Muniments at Dulwich College (Lon don, 1881) ; and Thomas Fuller, of England (London, 1662).