The portrait painter Francis Alleyne was baptised under the surname ‘Alleyn’ at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Richmond, Surrey, on 25th January 1740. He was one of the eight children of Henden (or Hendon) Alleyn and his wife Mary. Henden Alleyn (1703–1788) was a barber and ‘peruke [wig] maker’ in Richmond. A baptism record shows that he was the son of Thomas Alleyn, a farmer, and his wife Margaret. ‘Thomas Alleyn, Gent.’ (sic) was married to Mrs Margaret Pilcher at St Mary, Crundale, on 23rd April 1685. They were both from Fordwich, a town on the other side of Canterbury from Crundale, notable as the smallest in Britain with a Mayor and Corporation: its 2011 population was still just 381. That Thomas was noted as a gentleman is of interest as it suggests the Alleyns were or had been a minor gentry family. Henden married Mary King at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Richmond, on 16th February 1727.

The Alleyn siblings were baptised at Richmond in the following order: Henden junior (1728–1748), Elizabeth (1731), John (1733–1791?), Thomas (1735–1801), Mary (1737), Francis (1740), Ann (1743), and Margaret (1751). The second son, Thomas, married Sarah Christmas at St James’s, Piccadilly, on 22nd December 1780, with Francis as official witness. In January 1802, following Thomas’s death, Francis was co-administrator of his will with Thomas’s son Francis. The latter was then a linen draper in Richmond but, by his death in 1817, a City tavern keeper recorded as ‘late of the Goose and Gridiron public house in London house yard in the parish of St Gregory by St Paul’.

Francis the artist married Elizabeth Harris on 14th December 1767 at St Paul’s, Covent Garden. She probably died at Richmond in March 1773. Her husband’s surname was first recorded as ‘Alleyne’ when, as a widower, he remarried to 25-year-old Elizabeth Roth at St Giles in the Fields, Camden, on 18th May 1774. It has been suggested that she was daughter of the drapery painter George Roth (active c.1742–1778, who worked with Van Loo, Hudson and Ramsay) and sister of the artists George (junior) and William Roth. This seems likely given that Francis and Elizabeth Alleyne were witnesses to the marriage of George Roth junior and Ann Baas at St Giles in the Fields on 18th April 1775.

Alleyne’s base from 1774, if not earlier, was in London. His submissions to both the RA and Free Society that year were from ‘Mr. Handy’s [or perhaps Hardy’s], Porter Street, Newport Market’: this no longer exists, the site later being occupied by Sandringham Buildings, to the east of the Charing Cross Road. From at least 1779 to 1802 he was in (Old) Compton Street, Soho. A 1779 Sun Fire Office policy identifies him as a ‘Limner’ there and one of June 1785 as a ‘Gent.’ at no. 14. In 1790 he submitted to the Society of Artists from Compton Street and another Sun record of 28th July 1792 places him at no. 44 as a ‘portrait painter’. Whether the 14 and 44 reflect a move, record error or changed house numbering is unknown, but he was still in the street when he appeared to co-administrate his brother Thomas’s will in 1802 and probably until at least 1807: the Elizabeth Alleyne of Compton Street noted that April in the burial register of St Anne’s, Soho, is likely to be evidence of him being widowed for the second time.

Alleyne’s only exhibited work at the Royal Academy, a ‘Small whole length. Portrait of a person running’ was no. 1 there in 1774. ‘A portrait of a young lady’ was also no. 1 and his sole exhibit at the Free Society in 1774, with another ‘Portrait of a lady’ as no. 7 at the Society of Artists in 1790. He appears to have favoured half- and three-quarter lengths in oval formats, often fairly small (c.37 x 30 cm) and his practice was also conducted out of London. In his dictionary of British artists, Ellis Waterhouse commented that he ‘probably moved around Kent in 1786, going from family to family to paint portraits’, apparently having noted a 1962 auction, probably at Sotheby’s, that dispersed a set done that year of the Wheatley family. A report of it in Country Life, (5th April, p. 777 [vol.131]) records that ‘Each portrait is 14 ins. by 11 ins. 

Alleyne may also have worked in Bath (a commercial honeypot for artists, especially miniaturists). Another oval portrait of a gentleman of about 1790, with a frame label reading ‘Francis Alleyne of Bath’ appeared in Country Life for 10th April 1975. Since no Bath sitter can be found to fit and the style and format are Alleyne’s, this seems to identify him as the painter.

Art UK lists 12 portraits by or attributed to Alleyne, including the pair at Yale. Two held by the National Trust at Hatchlands Park depict Captain Thomas Conway (d. India 1794?) and his wife Sophia Conway (née von Schramm, 1742–1785) of Morden Park, Sussex. Their daughter Frances Conway (1777–1847) married Charles Cobbe of that wealthy land-owning family in Ireland. One of their children was Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904), a noted writer and feminist.

Alleyne also had a link to the Austen family. Deirdre Le Faye’s book A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family: 1700–2000 (2006), p. 61, notes for 1774: ‘It may be this year that Mr JLP [Jane Austen’s uncle James Leigh Perrot] has his portrait painted in oils by Francis Alleyne – small oval, three-quarter length, seated, wearing blue coat and buff breeches.’

Alleyne died at Vine Row in Richmond and was buried there in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalene on 24th December 1815