Remembering Muriel Rose Allen, MBE (1931–2024): a philanthropist and first female governor in the UK of a men-only prison

This obituary of the late Muriel Allen (1931–2024) explores how, despite being born into a large, poor working-class family in London and receiving a limited education, she rose to become a philanthropist and, in 1984, the first woman to be appointed prison governor of a men’s prison in the UK: Kingston prison, Portsmouth, Hampshire. Up to 1984, only men had been governors of prisons for male inmates, but Muriel Allen decided to test the 1975 UK Sex Discrimination Act and achieved her goal. She was a strict but enlightened prison governor offering, amongst other things, education courses for the inmates. Muriel never forgot the poverty of her childhood and after she retired from the prison service studied for a History degree and engaged in philanthropic work. She fundraised to help establish a local hospice for the terminally ill and especially to support homeless children and their families living in the local Roberts Centre. A deeply committed Christian, the children at the Roberts Centre were a cause dear to her heart.