James Allan

A memoir of a meeting appeared in The New Monthly Magazine, Vol 24 1828, of “…the late James Allan mathematical instrument maker in London, who died in the year 1821....Mr Allan was a native of the parish of Edinkillie, who procured to himself a considerable portion of fame by the discovery of several simple, but most accurate methods of graduating mathematical instruments.
.... In Nov 1800 James Allan is a shopman (?foreman) lately in the employ of the famous Jessie Ramsden receiving a legacy from Mr Ramsden of twenty pounds. It seems that Allan remained at the Piccadilly workshop, (which had been inherited by Matthew Berge from Jessie Ramsden,) and was in a position to operate independently. In Nov 1809 he presented to the Royal Society of Arts an improvement on the dividing machine created in 1775 by his former employer Jessie Ramsden.