[5][6][7][8] His brother, James Pearson Alison was an architect, principally practising in Roxburghshire with offices in Hawick.
[3][9][10] He trained as painter at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) in Edinburgh, where he exhibited landscape paintings of Cousland (Midlothian) and St Mary's Loch (Selkirkshire) in 1881 and 1882; also a portrait of his father entitled Thomas Alison, Esq., Chief Magistrate of Dalkeith.
[11][12] He won two silver medals in 1881, for exhibits at the RSA,[13] and in 1882 won a gold prize in a national competition of the works of schools of Art for an oil figure painted from an antique,[14] He was a member of the Life School in the RSA (where fine art was taught until the school moved to the newly formed of Edinburgh College of Art in 1907),[15][16] winning a prize for the second best Painting from Life, in 1881.
Among his works that were exhibited were Crichton Castle, A Red Deer Calf among the Rushes, A Sketching Club and In Rothesay Bay.
[4] He continued to live in the family home at Rosehill and participated in local life.