John Ramsay Allardyce Nicoll (28 June 1894 – 17 April 1976) was an English literary scholar and teacher.

Allardyce Nicoll was born and educated in Glasgow. He became a lecturer at King's College London

King's College London

King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

 in 1920 and took the chair of English at East London College (later Queen Mary's College

Queen Mary's College

Queen Mary's College is a sixth form college in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.-The College:The majority of the college's classrooms are housed in a single, two-storey, wide spread main building with a few smaller buildings and four temporary buildings providing most of the rest of the teaching...

 in 1923. In 1933 he went to Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 as professor of the history of drama and dramatic criticism and chair of the drama department. He established a strong graduate programme in theatre history. Around 1943-45 he performed war work at the British embassy in Washington. From 1945 to 1961 he headed the English Department at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

; from 1951 to 1961 he was also founding director of the Shakespeare Institute

Shakespeare Institute

The Shakespeare Institute is a centre for postgraduate study dedicated to the study of William Shakespeare and the literature of the English Renaissance. It is part of the University of Birmingham, and is located in Stratford-upon-Avon....

at Birmingham.

His major work was his six-volume History of English Drama, 1660-1900, published as separate volumes starting in 1923, and reissued as a set in 1952-59. He also wrote many other books on English drama.

He was married twice and had no children.