Robert Alister (sic) was entered as the father of the bride on the 1852 marriage certificate of his daughter, Margaret Allister, in 1852.

Robert Allister apparently belonged to Lisburn, a city in what is now Northern Ireland. It lies eight miles to the south-west of Belfast, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary of County Antrim and County Down.

The presence of people named Allister who were farmers in the townland of Duneight, just outside of Lisburn, is noted and it may be that they were a part of the same family.

The marriage of Robert Allister and Elizabeth McQuowen on 19^th March 1819, witnesses Robert Allister (uncle) and Joseph McQuowen, is entered in the records of the First Lisburn Presbyterian Church and provides a likely match.

Any account of his life which can at present be assembled is necessarily conjectural but he may have been the cotton merchant referred to on occasion in newspaper reports of the time. The Belfast Mercantile Register and Weekly Advertiser, 5^th October 1852, under the Belfast Imports column, lists:

Per Glow-Worm, from Glasgow, 30th September R. Allister, Lisburn, 7bgs. Cottons, 4 boxes muslins.

The sudden death of Robert Allister on the night of Tuesday, 21^st / Wednesday, 22^nd was reported in a number of Irish papers, of which the Belfast News-Letter, of Friday, 24^th February 1860, is reported as a representative sample:

DEATH FROM HEART DISEASE. – Tuesday night last, a man, named Robert Allister, went to bed in his house in Lisburn in good health; but on Wednesday morning he was found dead in his bed. J. K. Jackson, Esq., Coroner, held an inquest yesterday evening, at Lisburn, on the body. Dr. Campbell was examined, and stated that it was his opinion death had proceeded from heart disease. The jury returned a verdict accordingly.

Whilst by no means conclusive, it is probable that this refers to the father of Margaret McIntyre MS Allister. The Dublin Daily Express, 11^th February 1863 cannot therefore refer to the same gentleman, although it may be a surviving relative who carried on his business:

A KINDLY ACT. – Messrs. Auld, Berry, and Matheson, of Glasgow, who are extensive employers of muslin weavers in the vicinity of the Maze, have generously remitted £10 to their agent, Mr. Allister, in Lisburn, for distribution among the most needy of their unemployed hands.