Alexander Dallas

Who was Alexander Dallas?

Rev. Alexander Robert Charles Dallas was an author, Church of England minister and Rector of Wonston in Hampshire from 1828 to 1869, a member of the family that descended from James Dallas Rosshire in Scotland.

He was born on the 29th of March, 1791 in Colchester, the son of a Barrister, the Jamaican born Robert Charles Dallas. His grandfather, Dr. Robert Charles Dallas, was a doctor who amassed a fortune in Jamaica.

Prior to taking his religious orders, Dallas had been a supplies officer in Wellington’s army during the Napoleonic wars in Spain. He was present at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

He entered the Middle Temple studying Law in 1819, and then Worcester College, Oxford; he was awarded an MA. He was ordained a deacon and then a priest in the Church of England in 1821 and curate of Radley.

At Morden in Surrey on the 4th of May 1818 Rev. Dallas married Mary Anne Ferguson by whom he had five children. He began his mission to Ireland in 1843 and he famously established the controversial Irish Church Missions to Roman Catholics on the 28th of March 1849, which set up a number of Churches, schools, missions and orphanages.