Alexander Dallas(Anglican Priest)

Alexander Robert Charles Dallas (29 March 1791 – 12 December 1869) 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 of Rosshire in Scotland.

He was born in Colchester, the son of a barrister, the Jamaican born Robert Charles Dallas (1754–1824). His grandfather, Dr. Robert Charles Dallas (1710–1769), was a doctor who amassed a fortune in Jamaica. Before 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.

Dallas entered the Middle Temple studying law in 1819 (but was not called to the bar), and then Worcester College, Oxford where he was awarded an M.A. He was ordained a deacon and then a priest in the Church of England in 1821 and curate of Radley.

At Morden, Surrey on the 4 May 1818 Dallas married Mary Anne Ferguson, widow of James Edge, with 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 28 March 1849, which set up a number of Churches, schools, missions and orphanages. Officially he held the post Honorary Secretary of the Irish Church Missions. The Irish church missions was seen as proselytising during the Irish Famine, and for being Soupers. In the west of Ireland particularly Galway his evangelistic zeal and aggressive approach caused much conflict in the community. He moved for a while to Castlekirke on Lough Corrib where he set up a school. He had his sermons translated from English to the Irish Language for the native population. Rev. Dallas and the ICM entered into partnership with the Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through the Medium of Their Own Language. In the west, Rev. Dallas' anti-catholic tirades caused much bitterness within the Irish Society, with the Dublin University branch opposing the alliance.

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