Edgar Allen & Co were a Sheffield company specialising in cast steel, founded in 1867, based at the Imperial Steel Works. It became a limited company in 1890. It branched out into production of materials handling equipment, and it began offering cement making equipment in the early 20th century, using the Maxted & Knott consultancy as intermediary to the industry. It supplied its first UK kiln (Sundon A2) in 1909. This was an aggressive entry into the industry, since it was the largest kiln installed to date. The company reached peak kiln production during the late 1920s with its "Tiger" kiln brand, but the Maxted and Knott connection became a drag on innovation, and its market was lost to Vickers Armstrong and FLS in the post-depression period. It was particularly distressed to find its Sheffield near neighbour T W Ward sourcing FLS equipment for its Ketton plant without asking Allen to quote.
The company had a brief swan song in the 1950s with the supply of five kilns for the Anhydrite Process plants, but lacked the technical knowledge to supply the more complex modern systems, and provided no kilns after 1955. The Imperial Works site closed in 1988.