Birsay Feas / Robert Fea I / Robert Fea II / Charles Fea I / William Charles Fea and Marie Quensell

Allan Fea and Louisa Hallmark

Allan Fea went to Grove House School, Highgate.

In 1877, he was engaged in special work in the library of the India Office, Whitehall under his friend Dr R Rost, who was librarian there. Two years later, he was private secretary to Field Marshall Lord Strathnairn.

He entered the service of the Bank of England in 1880. At the time of the 1881 census, he was staying with his widowed mother and older brother, William Fea, at 28 Dartmouth Road, St Pancras, London.

Allan still resided there at the time of his marriage to Louisa Hallmark, the daughter of Thomas Hallmark, Newport on 30th December 1893. Interestingly, his age is given as 23 years in the register although he would have been 33 years at the time. Louisa was 28. She gave the same address as Allan at the time of their marriage.

He retired from the Bank of England in December 1900 due to ill health and started a writing career. He had a large number of books and articles published from then and for most of the rest of his long life. This included "The Real Captain Cleveland" (1912), which sought to tell the true story of James Fea VI of Clestrain's capture of the pirate, John Gow, on the Calf of Eday in 1725. Sir Walter Scott had used the story as the basis for his book, "The Pirate", which was a fictionalised account. The John Gow character in that book had been given the name "Captain Cleveland".

The book also includes genealogical information on the Fea family and remains the key book for those interested in the early Feas originating in Orkney.

In 1927, he published "Recollections of Sixty Years", which he dedicated to his wife.

To My Dear Wife These pages are dedicated: To Whose Incomparable Loyalty Sympathy, Encouragement And Advice I Owe Everything

The book is a series of recollections, rather than an autobiography. It does include a chapter on his father's sojourn to Peru from 1837, drawn from a journal, which his father had written.

Correspondence of Allan Fea is lodged in the British Library in St Pancras in London. This covers largely the general subject areas of his books: country houses and history.

He was living at "Rest-a-While", Vale View Road, Whitstable, Kent when he died on 9th June 1956 at the age of 94.

Who Was Who 1951-1960 describes Allan Fea as a "Historian and Antiquary."