Alison was born on 29 December 1792 at Kenley in Shropshire, the family moving to Edinburgh in 1800. He was called to the Scottish Bar on 8 December 1814 and appointed Sheriff of Lanarkshire on 12 February 1835. Within six months he was active in suppressing a riot at Airdrie, and became personally involved in dealing with many violent disturbances, including the 1848 Glasgow riots.
Alison was elected Lord Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen in 1845, then of Glasgow University in 1851, and received a baronetcy in 1852. Many of his writings on population, currency and biography were published, but his literary reputation rests on his "History of Europe".
In 1825 he married Elizabeth Glencairn, and they had two sons and one daughter. Alison died at Possil House on 23 May 1867. Lady Alison died in Edinburgh on 5 October 1874.
"I AM of the opinion which Cicero puts into the mouth of the elder Cato - that old age is the happiest period of life." Such was the deliberate judgment of Sir Archibald Alison, expressed after he had completed some three score and ten years of honourable toil. And this conviction found expression in a countenance the serene and even noble aspect of which manifested the contentment of a still vigorous intellect, contemplating in pleasant retrospect the varied incidents of a long and active career.
Sir Archibald came of a good stock, being, on the father's side, descended from the Alisons of Newhall, and, on the mother's, connected with a long line of Gregorys who made themselves famous in science and in literature. His paternal grandfather, Patrick Alison, chose a mercantile life, and became Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Patrick's son Archibald - father of the future "Tory" Sheriff - after attending classes in Glasgow College, completed his education at Oxford, and became a clergyman of the Church of England. He attained a wide celebrity as the author of "Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste," and appears to have been a kindly, worthy man. The elder of his two sons became a physician of some distinction; the younger - Archibald, the subject of the present notice - was born on 29th December, 1792, at Kenley in Shropshire, while his father was curate there.
The historical bent of "young Archy's" mind was manifested early. It was probably directed by the political excitement of the times during which his childhood was spent. Continental wars and rebellion in Ireland formed chief topics of the conversations which he overheard, and naturally his amusements took the form of mimic fights between French and English, and - for lack of nobler foes - the quelling of a "rebellion amongst the onions," whose dominion in the garden was invaded on one occasion, with great slaughter. When his father removed to Edinburgh in 1800 to take charge of the Episcopal Chapel in the Cowgate, young Archibald frequently saw the military manoeuvering on Bruntsfield Links, and used to lie awake in bed carrying on imaginary battles. When he grew up to care for books, the first which he bought were Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Alike in his amusements and in his studies, the child was foreshadowing the man.
In November, 1805, the lad entered classes at the University of Edinburgh. The first idea was to make him an engineer, but this notion was abandoned, and banking had been decided upon as his future profession, when, in 1808, he produced an "Essay on Population," which determined his father to train him for the Bar. A visit made in the spring of 1814 to Paris, then thronged by the allies and their armies, contributed to fix the direction of Archibald's future thoughts. In the meantime, however, he made progress in acquiring the rudiments of his profession, and on 8th December, 1814, he was called to the Scottish Bar. In less than three years he was in receipt of an income of five or six hundred per annum; and in February, 1823, he was appointed Advocate-Depute, with good hopes of soon being Solicitor-General.
But the ambitious caprice of Sir Wm. Rae stopped promotion, and in 1830, at the close of the Wellington Administration, Alison, instead of being Lord-Advocate or upon the Bench, found himself obliged to resign his post of Advocate-Depute, and with it his hopes of place, power, and distinction in Parliament. This was a sad blow, but he met it bravely, and in doing so he was ably seconded by his wife, whose prudence and economy helped him to eke out resources which at first were comparatively slender. To supplement these Alison published a work on Criminal Law, for the first edition of which Blackwood gave him 200 guineas. Prior to this he had been engaged upon a work on population, and also upon his "History of Europe," the first pages of which were written on 1st January, 1829. In 1831 he commenced to contribute political papers to "Blackwood's Magazine," and in April, 1833, the first two volumes of the "History" were published, Blackwood giving 250 guineas for the first thousand.
Shortly after this the event occurred which connected Alison so intimately with Glasgow. On 16th December, 1834, Mr. Rose Robinson, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, died. The office was worth above £1400 per annum. Alison applied for and obtained it from Sir Robert Peel, and on 12th February, 1835, took up his abode in Possil House, which was so long to be associated with his name.
The post which had been accepted was no sinecure, and the new Sheriff's first act was to relieve his Substitute of 200 out of 300 cases all in arrear, many of them having been so for twelve or eighteen months. When Alison came to Glasgow the Sheriff's offices were in rooms rented by the Sheriff-Clerk on the second floor of an old tenement in the Stockwell, a barber's shop being on the first floor, and a wholesale whisky store on the ground floor. In these incommodious and dangerous premises all the archives of an important court were kept. The new Sheriff at once took steps to remedy this state of matters, but as the cost of improvements formed a joint liability of City and County, the jealousy between the commercial and agricultural interests constituted a serious barrier to reform. In April, 1836, a bill, which had been introduced into Parliament in the autumn of 1835 for raising £50,000 by joint assessment, was passed in spite of the strenuous opposition of the Glasgow landlords, but the Town Council refused to elect Commissioners, and they thereby delayed for no less than six years the commencement of the new buildings in Wilson Street. Meantime the only thanks which Alison received came in the form of a personal requisition for £1,247 to pay the Parliamentary agent's account, and it was not without difficulty that he evaded the demand.
Alison's career as Sheriff was marked by many exciting episodes. Within six months after taking office he was called upon to suppress, at the head of a troop of horse, a formidable riot at Airdrie. This was only one of many violent disturbances, including the Glasgow riots of 1848, in which he braved personal danger, and it was no uncommon thing for him to go on toilsome night expeditions with the military after a hard day's work in court. He naturally supposed that his activity in the cause of order rendered him unpopular with the disturbers of society, and on one occasion he anticipated an attack on Possil House; but a messenger was sent from the colliers in the vicinity to say that as they knew that Alison was only doing his duty, he was the last man to whom violence would be offered.
In connection with a disturbance in 1837 there occurred an incident which, besides being highly dramatic, gave the Sheriff an opportunity of distinguishing himself with praiseworthy tact and courage. A commercial panic was complicated by extensive "strikes." The most formidable of these were the strikes of the cotton spinners and colliers; the combined effect of which was to let loose upon the already distressed community about 80,000 destitute persons. To cope with the trades' unionists Glasgow had some 280 police. The peace, therefore, was not maintained, and not only was force used to prevent the well-disposed from working, but combustibles were being thrown into the mills and houses of employers. At length, on 22nd July, 1837, a "new hand" was shot dead in a Glasgow street by two ruffians, whom no spectator dared arrest. The masters were roused by this event to offer a reward of £500 for the discovery of the assassins, and on the 25th July two "informers" met Alison by appointment in a vault under the old College, and disclosed the fact that there existed an organization for the murder of the new hands and the masters one by one. Having ascertained the whereabouts of the assassination committee's meeting-place, Alison, at nine o'clock on a Saturday night, and armed with nothing but a walking cane, set out for the "Blackboy Close," a vile and dangerous locality in the Gallowgate near to the Cross. He was accompanied by Mr. Salmond the Fiscal, Captain Miller, and a posse of police. The meeting-room was entered by a trap-door in the floor, through which Captain Miller made his way followed by Alison, behind whom came the Fiscal and one sheriff's officer. Arrived in the room Alison took a position under the solitary gas jet to prevent its being extinguished, while Captain Miller read out the name of each panic-stricken conspirator and beckoned him unresistingly out into the hands of the police. On Monday the cotton spinners met on the Green and resolved to go in on the masters' terms; on Tuesday the factories were in full swing, and a dangerous combination was at an end. All the prisoners got seven years' transportation.
Another dangerous service performed by Alison was the attending the execution at Bishopbriggs of two railway labourers from Ireland, who had murdered their overseer. So great was the fear of riot that a body of 1800 troops with two field guns was massed at Bishopbriggs on the night before the execution. Alison's duty was to lead the procession from Glasgow to Bishopbriggs with the culprits, and back again with their dead bodies. The road was lined by a surging crowd, whose roar drowned the Sheriff's voice, but by tact and the exhibition of a bold front actual riot was avoided. The Glasgow magistrates prudently remained within the friendly shelter of the court-yard of Glasgow Jail whilst the execution was going on miles away, and Alison narrowly escaped having to pay some £130 towards the expenses of the military escort.
But the Sheriff was frequently called upon to perform duties of a highly agreeable kind. In 1849 he was specially appointed to escort the Queen through Glasgow, and he had the privilege of riding alongside of the royal carriage and of pointing out to Her Majesty the various objects of interest which she passed. For more than thirty years he presided at most of the important public meetings which were held within his jurisdiction, and, although he at first declined the honour, it was his good fortune, in 1859, to be Chairman of the Burns Centenary Banquet which took place in Glasgow. All public movements of a worthy nature had his sympathy. The Volunteers especially were warmly admired and supported by him during the seven or eight years in which he lived after their first enrolment, and the last address which he published was prepared a few weeks before his death for delivery at the opening of the Burnbank Drill Hall, but illness prevented him from attending the ceremony. He took a lively interest also in all matters affecting the working classes, from the "burning question" of trades' unionism on the one hand, to the more aesthetic movement for providing "schools of design" on the other, the Glasgow school being one of his pet schemes.
Alison's qualities and attainments received abundant recognition. He was elected Lord Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1845, and of Glasgow University in 1851. In 1852 he received his baronetcy, and shortly afterwards he was made D.C.L. by Lord Derby as Chancellor of the University of Oxford. When Alison became a baronet it was believed that he was about to be elevated to the Bench of the Court of Session, but Justice-Clerk Hope successfully raised certain technical objections. Some time before this the Sheriff had effected important reforms in the form of pleadings before the Glasgow Sheriff Court, and much business was in consequence drawn away from the Supreme Court. It would be wrong to attribute to this fact Lord Hope's opposition to Alison's elevation, or the frequency with which Glasgow Sheriff Court decisions were reversed in Edinburgh.
Contrary to the usual rule, Alison chose his Substitutes from amongst the practitioners at the local Glasgow Bar, and this may have made him less popular in Parliament House circles than he otherwise might have been, but within his own jurisdiction his kindness and urbanity to all who met him in business, in Court, or in Chambers made him as popular as he was respected.
Although Sir Archibald wrote many essays and published works on population and on currency, as well as two or three volumes of biography, his literary reputation rests mainly upon his "History of Europe," which, besides being reprinted in Paris, Brussels, and America, was translated into French, German, Hindostanee, and Arabic. His autobiography, published after his death, although it contains much which is a mere record of places he had seen and great people he had met, has in it nevertheless passages of considerable historical importance.
In 1825 Alison married Elizabeth Glencairn, daughter of Colonel Tytler, and granddaughter of William Tytler, the literary defender of Mary Queen of Scots. Lady Alison survived her husband, but died in Edinburgh on 5th October, 1874. She had three children; two sons and one daughter. The elder son - the present Sir Archibald - has in the Crimea, in India, and in Egypt nobly contributed to "make" that kind of history of which his father loved to write the records.
Sir Archibald Alison died full of years and honours at Possil House on 23rd May, 1867. Till within a few days of the event he was, for his time of life, vigorous both in body and mind. A public funeral was accorded to him, and it was attended by the Lord Provost and Magistrates, the Members of the Faculty of Procurators, the Knights Companions of the Royal Order of Scotland, the Volunteers, and the Freemasons, in which latter body the late Sheriff had held a prominent position. His grave in the south-west part of the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, lies in a line with the burial-places of Cockburn and Jeffrey. Since Sir Archibald's death vast have been the changes which have taken place at Possil, for whole streets of workmen's houses and the Saracen Iron Foundry now stand upon the ground over which once waved the trees which shaded the old Sheriff in his daily walks.
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