James Barnett Allison (1880 - 1907)

Born 28 Jun 1880 in Monaghan, County Monaghan, Ireland

Ancestors

Died 31 Mar 1907 at age 26 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Biography

Barney Allison was born in Ireland.

Wikidata: Item Q3160904, en:Wikipedia

Barney was a Rugby Player for the Ireland national team

James was born in 1880 in Monaghan, County Monaghan. He was the son of Rev. James Allison and Florence King.

He attended Campbell College, Belfast where he came to prominence as a talented rugby centre, representing his school and later Queens College and Edinburgh University, where he was studying medicine. He also played cricket for Campbell.

He was first selected as a rugby international while still a schoolboy at Campbell and debuted in Ireland's triple-crown winning team in the 1899 Home Nations Championship (what is today the Six Nations Championship).

He competed in every match of the 1903 Championship but in 1904 had to settle for a role as substitute.

In November that year he emigrated to Quebec. He worked at the Lachine offices of an engineering company, the Dominion Bridge Works, and the Chalmers-Bullock Company. He also played rugby for Montreal Football Club from 1905-1907, also playing cricket in the summer.

He passed away of pneumonia in 1907 in Montreal, aged only 26 and is buried at Mount Royal Cemetery.

Find A Grave: Memorial #170221907

Sources

• Always Turn The Page: The Corkey Story 1600-2000 by David Robinson (public domain, 2010)
• https://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/227835.html

Research Notes

Just stumbled across this one while doing little corrections. On Familysearch he was down as James Garnet Allison, based on just one birth record. On a hunch, given his mother's maiden name, I did a search instead for Barnett, and found birth records for the same place, same year which suggests the first record was mistranscribed. There wasn't much more so I did a Google search, and up popped his Wikipedia page!