Researching James Allan

Allan played as a forward and played six seasons for his province Otago, from 1881 to 1886. Allan's eight All Black appearances came on the 1884 New Zealand rugby union tour of New South Wales on which he scored three tries. He was one of New Zealand's most valuable players. on the tour, where he played eight of the All Blacks' nine games – all played over 23 days.

Allan was highly regarded as a forward with contemporary reports saying he was "consistently in the vanguard". Allan was also reported to be never far away from the ball along with being as "hard as nails". During his playing career at Otago, Allan became a distinguished player for the province. He had three other brothers who represented Otago.

Allan was a pupil of Otago Boys' High School.

Allan was educated at the University of Manitoba. He was ordained in 1955 and began his ordained ministry with curacies in Winnipeg, after which he spent four years as a missionary at Peguis First Nation. From 1960 to 1968 he was Rector of St Mark's Winnipeg and then Rural Dean of Cypress. He was Dean of Qu'Appelle and Rector of St Paul's Cathedral, Regina until his ordination to the episcopate as the 6th Bishop of Keewatin in 1974. He resigned his see in 1991 and was an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island until 1994. He died on June 26, 2013.

Allan has degrees from Queen's University, the London School of Economics and the University of Hong Kong. He qualified as a barrister and solicitor with The Law Society of Upper Canada in 1988. Prior to his appointment at the University of Queensland, Allan taught at the University of Otago.

As a legal scholar, Allan is well-known for his skepticism regarding bills of rights.

Allan writes opinion pieces in The Australian newspaper. He is author of Democracy in Decline: Steps in the Wrong Direction, occasional contributor to Quadrant magazine and The Spectator and editor of the University of Queensland Law Journal. As a columnist for The Spectator Australia, he has supported the view that Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election was marked by voting irregularities; that the election was potentially flawed because of extensive mail-in voting and a lack of ballot security.