Robert P. Allingham ’49 died on May 13, 2007, at his home in Groton, Connecticut.

He was born on February 1, 1928, in Newton, Mass., and prepared for college at Newton High School. He attended Bowdoin College as a member of Zeta Psi fraternity for one year before enlisting in the Navy in 1946. He served two years as a hospital corpsman at St. Alban’s Hospital alum notes obituaries in Long Island, N.Y., receiving his honorable discharge in 1948. He then enrolled at Brown University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1951, and later attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he completed his course work for a doctorate in chemistry in 1957. He joined what was then known as Chas. Pfizer and Co., Inc. in 1951 as a research chemist. He remained at Pfizer, taking time off to attend MIT, for more than 40 years, until his retirement in 1993. He was responsible for numerous discoveries in the food chemistry and pharmaceutical fields. His interests were varied: he had experience as a winemaker, an information systems designer, a model boat and half-hull builder for the Mystic Seaport Watercraft Collection, a sailor, a member of the Groton Representative Town Meeting and later the Groton City Council. He also was a gifted singer and master gardener. He was a member of the choir and vestry of Bishop Seabury Episcopal Church in Groton, and later St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic, and served on the board of directors of the Child & Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut and of the Shenecossett Beach Club. He is survived by his wife of more than 55 years, Mary Marshall Leonard; sons Thomas J. Allingham II and Stephen E. Allingham; daughter Sarah E. Wills; and seven grandchildren. His daughter, Polly C. Kellum, predeceased him in 1999.