Joseph Francis Allen was an Australian politician.

Born at Perranzabuloe

Perranzabuloe

Perranzabuloe is a coastal civil parish and a hamlet in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The hamlet is situated just over a mile south of the principal settlement of the parish, Perranporth; the hamlet is also seven miles south-southwest of Newquay...

 in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

 to carpenter William Allen and Salome Williams, he came to Parramatta in 1879 and from 1884 worked as an articled clerk to a Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 architect, subsequently becoming a civil engineer. After moving to Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 in 1894, he married Jean Symington Buntine on 25 September 1900. In 1903 Allen was elected to East Fremantle Municipality, on which he would continue to serve (with a one-year break) until his death. He was mayor from 1909 to 1914. In 1914 he was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Council

Western Australian Legislative Council

The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of parliament in the Australian state of Western Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the Legislative Assembly. It sits in Parliament House in the state...

 as a Liberal member. He was Chairman of Committees from 1919 until his defeat in the 1920 election. He continued to be active in what became the Nationalist Party

Nationalist Party of Australia

The Nationalist Party of Australia was an Australian political party. It was formed on 17 February 1917 from a merger between the conservative Commonwealth Liberal Party and the National Labor Party, the name given to the pro-conscription defectors from the Australian Labor Party led by Prime...

 and advocated greater cooperation with the new Country Party

National Party of Western Australia

The National Party of Western Australia is a political party in Western Australia. It is affiliated with the National Party of Australia but maintains a separate structure and identity....

; his strident support for electoral pacts led to his resignation as president of the Western Australian Nationalist Party in 1926. He was re-elected mayor of East Fremantle in 1931 but died suddenly in 1933; his body was found in the Swan River

Swan River (Western Australia)

The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....

, but the coroner ruled no suspicious circumstances.