17 Facts About Ralph Allen

Ralph Allen purchased local stone mines from his postal profits and had Prior Park built as his country house to show off the versatility of Bath stone, using the old post office as his townhouse.

Ralph Allen is commemorated in the names of streets and schools in the city of Bath and was the model for the character of Squire Allworthy in the 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives his father as Philip Ralph Allen, reputed to be an innkeeper.

Ralph Allen moved in 1710 to Bath, where he became a post office clerk, and at the age of 19, in 1712, became the Postmaster of Bath.

At the age of 27, Ralph Allen took control of the Cross and Bye Posts in the South West under a seven-year contract with the General Post Office, although he had no official title.

Ralph Allen realised that post boys were delivering items of mail along their route without them being declared and that this was lost profit.

Ralph Allen introduced a "signed for" system that prevented the malpractice.

Ralph Allen improved efficiency by not requiring mail to go via London.

Ralph Allen's reputation grew and he took over more and more of the English postal system, signing contracts every seven years until he died aged 71.

Ralph Allen won the patronage of General Wade in 1715, when he disclosed details of a Jacobite uprising in Cornwall.

Ralph Allen was astute at marketing the qualities of Bath stone and erected an elaborately ornate building a few feet to the north of his house to demonstrate its qualities.

Ralph Allen continued to live there until 1745, when he moved to Prior Park, and the town house became his offices.

Ralph Allen had the Palladian mansion of Prior Park built on a hill overlooking the city, "To see all Bath, and for all Bath to see".

Ralph Allen gave money and the stone for the building of the Mineral Water Hospital in central Bath 1738.

Ralph Allen had a summer home built in the coastal town of Weymouth in Dorset, overlooking the harbour at number 2 Trinity Road, opposite the Customs House.

Ralph Allen's name is commemorated in Ralph Allen Drive which runs past his former home at Prior Park.

Ralph Allen is remembered in Ralph Allen School, one of the city's state secondary schools.