David Allison was born on July 3, 1836, in Newport, Hants, Nova Scotia.

He was a Canadian professor, educational administrator, and author. He was president of Mount Allison College (1869-1878) and later of Mount Allison University (1891-1911). He studied at the Dalhousie Collegiate School (later Dalhousie University), the Wesleyan Academy in Sackville, New Brunswick, and Wesleyan University in Connecticut (B.A., 1859; M.A., 1862). In 1862, he became a professor of classics at Mount Allison College and succeeded Humphrey Pickard as president of the college in 1869. He was active in advocating the innovation of women’s undergraduate education. In 1877, Allison was named superintendent of education for Nova Scotia. He developed an English grammar for use in Nova Scotia schools and wrote a three-volume “History of Nova Scotia” (1916). He returned to Mount Allison University in 1891 for his second term as president.

In 1862, he married Elizabeth Ann Powell (1839–1898), and in 1902, he remarried Ellen Elizabeth Cummins. He died on February 13, 1924, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.