Hugh Alison, as he was known to his friends, was educated in Worcestershire at Malvern College before going on to study history, law and divinity at New College, Oxford. He represented the university in the 1903 and 1904 Varsity matches and in the second of these contests, he famously pitched onto the 18th green at Woking from the clubhouse verandah roof.

Alison’s sporting prowess also extended to the cricket pitch, where he played first class matches for Somerset. With all this extracurricular activity away from the cloisters, it’s perhaps no great surprise that he never completed his studies. In fact, after being sent home several times, he was eventually expelled from the college.

He reached the fourth round of the Amateur Championship in 1906 and it’s thought this was the year he became involved with Harry Colt’s design firm. Colt was the architect for the new course at Stoke Poges Golf Club and Alison became the club’s first secretary in 1908, earning £13.6s.8d a month plus a small accommodation allowance.

Whilst there, he assisted Colt with the design of several courses in the Greater London area before The Great War intervened, which saw him become an Army captain working in ciphers. When hostilities ceased, Alison was assigned to North America to drum up business, designing more than twenty new courses during a nine-year tenure on the other side of the Atlantic.

Regarding his time spent in the United States and Canada during the 1920s, Henry Lord and Peter Pugh in Masters of Design – Great Courses of Colt, MacKenzie, Alison & Morrison wrote: “His eye-catching bunkering, often severely large and deep in equal measure, can call for courageous shots,” with one commentator “likening his elevated, built-up greens to those of the Americans C. B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor”.

A high point in Alison’s design career came during a short trip to Japan at the end of 1930, accompanied by his construction foreman George Penglase, when he built several new layouts – such as Tokyo, Hirono and Kawana – and revised others, like Nauro and the East course at Kasumigaseki. To this day, large, steep-faced bunkers in the land of the Rising Sun are referred to as ‘Alisons’.

During the 1930s, Alison worked on projects in places as far apart as Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and South Africa. He also collaborated with design partner John Morrison on several course designs in the Netherlands before World War II interrupted proceedings, causing him to re-enlist for the Army’s decoding department.

Alison moved to South Africa with his wife in 1947, revising a number of courses in that country before he passed away five years later, less than twelve months after the demise of his great friend and mentor, Harry Colt. John Morrison was then left to run the company for another decade until he too died in 1962.

It’s true to say that C. H. Alison is one of the most overlooked Golden Age architects, largely because his work was carried out on behalf of Colt Alison & Morrison Ltd, with Harry Colt given the architectural credit for projects that should really be attributed to his much-travelled design associate.

Extracts:

From The Golf Course by Cornish & Whitten: “Alison was co-author (with Colt) of Some Essays on Golf Course Architecture (1920) and contributed to Golf Courses: Design, Construction and Upkeep, edited by M. A. F. Sutton (1933, revised 1950)”.

From Keith Cutten’s book The Evolution of Golf Course Design: “The architect’s many influences contributed to his distinctive style. He followed strategic design principles, believing that risky shots should be justly rewarded with improved angles. However, when considering the era he operated in, his courses were often long and difficult; which, again, was a legacy of his experience at Pine Valley (where he had previously worked). Alison’s bunkering was highly personalised, being usually grand in scale, frequently deep and often downright intimidating.”