Eben Allen

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Eben Allen (15 November 1868 – 20 May 1931) was an Australian businessman and politician in Western Australia. He was born in North Adelaide, South Australia, to Mary Selina Cant and Joseph Allen. After schooling, he worked for various Adelaide firms, married Effie Marian Conigrave in 1895, and moved to Western Australia in 1899 to work for her father. He later started his own business as an auctioneer, real estate agent, and shipping agent, and became secretary of the Perth Chamber of Commerce and a director of a local building society.

Allen served on the Perth City Council from 1904 to 1912 and again from 1915 to 1918. He first ran for Parliament in 1908 but lost. In 1911, he was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly for West Perth as a Liberal, replacing the retiring Thomas Draper, and was re-elected in 1914. In 1917 Draper returned to challenge him, this time as a Nationalist, and Draper won the seat. Allen ran again in 1921 but finished third; Edith Cowan won the seat.

Allen died in Perth on 20 May 1931, at age 62. He had faced business difficulties and ill health, and died by suicide.