Of Allison's personal history we have no record beyond what is to be gleaned from a journal of one of his voyages afterwards published. While in command of the ship Ann, of Yarmouth, of 260 tons, in the service of the Russia Company, he left Archangel in the White Sea on his homeward voyage, on 8 October 1697. After beating about for seventeen days off the coasts of Russia and Lapland, he found himself, on the 23rd of the same month, twenty-one miles N.E. from the Nord Kyn, the northernmost point of Europe and Norway, in lat. 71° 6′ N. Two days later, during a gale in thick weather, he sighted the North Cape, and ran for shelter into the 'Fuel,' or wide opening between the Nord Kyn and the North Cape.
