Francis Alison (23)

Francis Alison (1705–28 November 1779) was a Presbyterian minister and educator and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1744. Born in Ireland and educated in Scotland, he immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1735. Ordained as the minister of the New London Presbyterian Church, Alison maintained his belief in the formal training and education of ministers during the series of revivals known as the Great Awakening. Alison’s commitment to education became manifest in 1743 when he chartered the New London Academy (a progenitor of the University of Delaware). There he taught Latin and logic and educated a number of students who would later become APS members and signers of the Declaration of Independence. He served in leadership positions at the Academy of Philadelphia and the College of Philadelphia and was the director of the Library Company from 1757 to 1765. In 1759, while serving as a minister to the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Alison chartered two life insurance corporations to care for aging Presbyterian ministers and their widows and families. Though his intellectual strengths were in the classics, his interests also included natural history and botany. When British forces occupied the city during the American Revolution, Alison fled Philadelphia. Upon his return, he joined others in calling for the revival of APS meetings. (PI, ANB, DNB, DAB)