Thomas Allis

Allis was educated in Burford and married Mary Naish of Flax Bourton in 1812, before going to York in 1823.^[2] He was appointed Superintendent of The Retreat, a private asylum in York, a position he kept until 1842 when he left to work in a similar position in Osbaldwick.^[1][2] Alongside his profession he studied ornithology and osteology.

Allis held two Honorary Curatorships at the Yorkshire Museum from 1835 to 1875, was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1857 and was one of the first members of the British Association.^[1][2] He was Honorary Curator of Ornithology from 1835 to 1839 before succeeding James Atkinson, following his death in 1839, in the post of Honorary Curator of Comparative Anatomy – a position Allis held from 1839 until his death in 1875.^[3]

Allis also served as vice-president of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society (YPS).^[4] In 1838, the YPS purchased a collection of comparative anatomy from Allis for £350.^[5]

Allis was a quaker.^[6] He had a son, Thomas Henry Allis, who was described as "assiduous collector of Lepidoptera",^[7] The son died in August 1870, five years before Thomas Allis senior.

• Allis, T. 1832. 'On Certain peculiarities of the bony fabric of the Ostrich, Emu, and Swift, Annual Report of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
• Allis, T. 1837. 'On the Sclerotic Bones forming the Orbit of the Eye in different Bird and Reptiles', Report of the British Association
• Allis, T. 1865. 'Further Note on a Skeleton of Dinornis robustus, Owen, in the York Museum', Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 8 (11–12), 140–141.
• Allis, T. 1873. 'On the Skeleton of the Apteryx', Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 11 (56), 523.