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English executioner

In October 1955 Allen was appointed as Chief Executioner alongside Pierrepoint, although he did not execute anyone in this role until 10 May 1956, when he hanged two EOKA members in Cyprus. Pierrepoint was no longer available because he had resigned in February 1956. Allen's most controversial hanging came in April 1962, when James Hanratty was hanged for murder, despite efforts to clear his name. Hanratty was proven guilty in 2002 by DNA. Allen also assisted in the 1953 execution of Derek Bentley, who was posthumously pardoned. He performed one of the last two executions in Britain, in August 1964.

Allen applied for a job in the Prison Service in the 1930s but was turned down. He successfully applied to be put on the Home Office list of executioners and was often employed as an assistant executioner to Tom Pierrepoint, the uncle of Albert Pierrepoint. In 1945, five German prisoners of war were hanged for murdering a fellow German soldier, Sergeant Major Wolfgang Rosterg, whom they suspected of having betrayed their escape plan. It seems to have been this crime and ultimate execution that made the deepest impression on Allen. He wrote, "It was a foul murder. They staged a mock trial, kicking the victim to death and dragging him by the neck to the toilet where they hung his lifeless body on a waste pipe. These five prisoners are the most callous men I have ever met so far but I blame the Nazi doctrine for that. It must be a terrible creed." A 21 year old, Erich Palme König, was the first of the soldiers to be hanged at Pentonville Prison, swearing allegiance to the last to Nazi Germany. On 28 January 1953 Allen assisted at the controversial execution of Derek Bentley, who was hanged for a murder committed by a friend and accomplice during an attempted robbery, and for which Bentley received a posthumous pardon 45 years later. Contrary to some accounts, Allen was not present at the execution of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, in 1955: the assistant to Albert Pierrepoint on that occasion was Royston Rickard. Following the resignation of Albert Pierrepoint and the death of Stephen Wade in 1956, Allen and Robert Leslie Stewart jointly became Chief Executioners. However, the Homicide Act 1957 reduced the number of condemned criminals by 75%, from an average of 15 a year in the early 1950s to about four a year in the late 1950s. As Chief Executioner, on 11 July 1958 Allen hanged American born Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel at Barlinnie prison, Glasgow. He also hanged Guenther Podola on 5 November 1959, a German born petty thief, and the last man to be hanged in the UK for killing a police officer. His most controversial case was that of James Hanratty, hanged on 4 April 1962 at Bedford Prison for the "A6 murder" case. Efforts to clear Hanratty's name continued until 2001, when DNA testing matched Hanratty to the crime scene. Allen performed the last execution in Northern Ireland in December 1961, when he hanged Robert McGladdery at Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. He also performed the last hanging in Scotland, when Henry Burnett was hanged at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen on 15 August 1963 for the murder of Thomas Guyan. He hanged Russell Pascoe, one of the third last prisoners to be hanged in a British prison, at Bristol's Horfield Prison on 17 December in the same year. He also performed one of the two final executions in the UK, when at 8.00 am on 13 August 1964 Gwynne Owen Evans was hanged at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West. This occurred simultaneously with the execution of Evans's accomplice Peter Anthony Allen, who was hanged at Walton Gaol in Liverpool by Robert Leslie Stewart. Allen always wore a bow tie during executions as a sign of respect. Of his job, Allen said, "I never felt a moment's remorse and always slept peacefully on the nights before and after a hanging." A second man also answering to the name "Harry Allen", Herbert Allen, an ice cream salesman from the West Midlands, was also on the official list of executioners for a period in the early 1950s, having graduated from the same training group as Syd Dernley. The two Harry Allens are known to have worked together as assistants on at least two double hangings.

Allen's first wife was Marjorie Clayton whom he married in 1933. She left him on the day that he was hanging Peter Manuel. Allen's second wife was Doris Dyke, whom he married in 1963. Allen always publicly maintained that hanging was a "swift and humane business". In his diaries he revealed that the execution of one prisoner, Peter Griffiths, who was convicted at Lancaster assizes of murdering a three year old child, June Anne Devaney, in the grounds of Queens Park Hospital in Blackburn on 15 May 1948, took 30 seconds, which would have been the time from Allen's entering the condemned cell to the moment of the drop. Many other executions were faster than this, but death itself was always practically instantaneous. Griffiths was 22 years old, 5' 10" tall, weighed 10st 8lbs, and was given a drop of 7 feet 6 inches on 15 November 1948 at Walton Gaol. Of another hanging he noted, "Very good job, but should have had another two or three inches – very strong." She said of him, "It's as if I had two grandfathers. One was the sweet, lovely man who took me for walks on the beach, bought me sweets and toys and always had me laughing and giggling. The other one was the man employed to take lives for the Government. When I was a kid, everyone in the area knew what he did. I remember going round to my first boyfriend's house for the first time and I tried to impress his dad by telling him I wanted to go on the stage. He looked up from his paper and said, 'Going on the stage are you, lass? Well keep away from the trapdoor!. Allen moved to Fleetwood with his wife Doris in 1977, to escape the continued publicity, and worked there as a cashier at Fleetwood Pier. He died on 14 August 1992, just a month after Albert Pierrepoint, who had died on 10 July in Southport.