Percival Allen FRS and the Wealden of southern England

Percival (‘Perce’) Allen's lifelong research into Wealden sedimentology and palaeoenvironments (published 1938–2012) is summarized. His initial investigations, principally into the lower Wealden Hastings Group, led to publication of a deltaic model in 1959 involving eustatically controlled lithofacies architecture. This model was eventually replaced by a revised version in which alluvial fan construction was linked to uplift of source massifs. Today, the revised model and its subsequent refinements form the basis of southern English Wealden palaeoenvironmental interpretation, applicable to both the Weald and Wessex sub‐basins in southern England. In later years, Percival Allen took a leading role in Wealden geoconservation, identifying and documenting Geological Conservation Review sites as vouchers for Wealden stratigraphy, palaeobiology, sedimentary processes and palaeoenvironments. A previously unpublished report written by Percival Allen is presented: an account of an excursion to Philpots Quarry, West Sussex, south‐east England. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 113, 677–693.