January 2nd 1979 was a cold day in Scotland. The harsh winter snows meant that the crowd at the famed annual missionary “Report Meeting” in Harley Street Gospel Hall, Glasgow, was much smaller than usual. However, those present were to witness something they would never forget. One of the three missionaries to speak that day was Robert Crawford Allison (1911-1979), a very ill man only 9 months from his homecall to heaven. He had just had a major operation, and had to sit while he spoke. But here was a man who had laboured for the Lord in central Africa for 44 years, travelled tens of thousands of miles, learnt 13 languages, survived multiple bouts of malaria, including cerebral malaria, avoided death on several occasions including being held at gunpoint. How was this possible when he left School at 14 to become a bricklayer? Listen to learn what God can do with a life wholly devoted to Him.
Here is a photo of the assembly inside the Gospel Hall in Harley Street, Ibrox, Glasgow, in 1967 (facing the platform), 12 years before Robert Crawford Allison’s 1979 report:
Below is a biography of Robert Crawford Allison, taken from the book They Finished Their Course“, published by John Ritchie Ltd, Kilmarnock, Scotland, in November 1980.
Bobby Allison was born in the little town of Galston in the Irvine Valley in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1911. His father was a colliery winding engineman who was in fellowship with the “Needed Truth” company of the Lord’s people that met in the town. His mother, Barbara kept open house and an open Bible. Bobby was saved when he was a lad of 14.
Early in his Christian life he showed an interest in missionary work although that company of Christians with which he was associated showed little interest in it. When he confided his desire to his mother, when he was 17, she was thrilled and told him her own secret. She too had wanted to be a missionary but her state of health had prevented her dream being realised. When her son was born, she coveted that kind of life for him and wanted to call him Crawford Robert Allison after the great Scots missionary in Central Africa [Dan Crawford] but father’s wishes had prevailed and his name was Robert Crawford Allison.
A few years later, three young men from that company of Christians in Galston attended an open air Missionary Conference in a field in nearby Newmilns, beside the outdoor stairway called Jacob’s Ladder, and heard Andrew Borland speaking on John 10:16: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” Those young men were excommunicated from the “Needed Truth” group for being at that conference, but two of them became missionaries; Willie Templeton who gave his life for the Lord in Trinidad, and Bobby Allison who spent most of the rest of his life in Africa. [Having left School at 14] Bobby was already an apprentice bricklayer, a trade which he was able to use to good advantage in Africa. Conscious of his lack of education Bobby began taking help in English from the late George Borland, and this facilitated his language learning in years to come. He anticipated working with primitive peoples and therefore took a course in dentistry. As far as the spiritual side of life was concerned, he was happy with the instruction received at the weekly conversational Bible Study in the Evangelistic Hall, Galston. Years later, when asked what seminary he had attended, Bobby would tell of the profit derived from attending the assembly Bible Study.
In 1930, at a Missionary Conference in Ayr, Bobby heard T. Ernest Wilson of Angola, at home for his first furlough, describing the needs of the unevangelised tribes in the north of that country, and became interested. His first move was to Portugal in 1934 to learn Portuguese. He was only there a few months when his mother’s death caused him to return home. In 1935 he set out with the commendation of the Galston assembly to try to
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