Allan, David

ALLAN, David (1808-1895) is best known in the Guelph, Ont. area as a miller who, with his father William Allan, operated a waterpower and grist mill on the Speed River in Guelph called Allan's Mills from the mid-1830's until 1877. Born at Leith Walk, Edinburgh, Scotland on 11 January 1808 David moved to Sweden at age 11 where his father was supervising the construction and operation of mills for the London firm of Dixon, Dugeon & Co. He moved back to Scotland in early 1830 and was briefly associated with David Bryce (1803-1876), the eminent architect of Edinburgh and master of the Scottish Baronial style. Bryce was beginning to develop an independent practice outside of his partnership with William Burn at this time and it is from Bryce that David Allan probably learned the rudiments of architectural practise and styles which he carried with him to Upper Canada in 1831. His father brought him first to Toronto and then to Guelph, Ont. where they settled in 1832 and purchased the existing mill adjacent to the present Canadian National Railway bridge. They undertook to develop this fledging industry and also to build water dams for the Canada Company at Stratford, Goderich and other locations in southwestern Ontario. David Allan's familiarity with architecture and engineering led to a successful collaboration with another Scotsman in 1857 when he assisted William Hay of Toronto as supervising architect for ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Norfolk Street at Suffolk Street, 1857-58 (A. Adamson & M. Macrae, Hallowed Walls, 1975, 167-70, illus.; W. S. Reid, A Century and A Half of Witness 1828-1978 - St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Guelph, 16-18). After his father's death in 1859 he acted as architect for the extensive additions and alterations to ALLAN'S MILLS erected in 1867 and executed in the Baronial style with stone turrets and stepped gables (Guelph Daily Mercury, 25 Oct. 1867, 1, descrip.). He also styled himself as architect for the new mill building added to the complex just one year later (Guelph Daily Mercury, 4 June 1868, 2, t.c.) Allan suffered a stroke in 1877 which left him partially paralysed and he was forced to withdraw from the milling business. He died in Guelph on 18 December 1895 (obituary in the Guelph Daily Mercury, 19 Dec. 1895, 3; biography in Illustrated Historical Atlas of Wellington County, 1906, page 11). The Archives of the University of Guelph hold several notebooks and daily journals relating to the career and work of David Allan (Allan-Higinbotham Papers, 1834-1955).