James Baylis Allen was a British engraver. Allen, together with William and Edward Radclyffe and the Willmores, belonged to a school of landscape-engravers which arose in Birmingham, where there were numerous engravers working on iron and steel manufactures.

Allen was born in Birmingham, 18 April 1803, the son of a button-manufacturer. As a boy he followed his father's business; then about age 15 he was articled to Josiah Allen, an elder brother and general engraver in Birmingham. Three years later he began his artistic training by attending the drawing classes of John Vincent Barber and Samuel Lines.

In 1824 Allen went to London, and found employment in the studio of the Findens, for whose Royal Gallery of British Art he engraved at a later period "Trent in the Tyrol", after Augustus Wall Callcott.

Allen died after a long illness at Camden Town, London, 10 January 1876.