McAllister, Alexander Patrick (Anthony Wharton)

by Frances Clarke

McAllister, Alexander Patrick (Anthony Wharton) (1877–1943), playwright and novelist, was born 4 July 1877, at Trintonville Road, Sandymount, Dublin, the son of Patrick Frederick McAllister, accountant to the port and and docks board in Dublin, and his wife, Catherine (née Morgan). He was educated at Clongowes Wood College (1891–4), and went on to study at UCD, graduating BA at the RUI (1899).

Using the pseudonym Anthony P. Wharton, his career as a writer took off in 1906 when his play ‘Irene Wycherly’ enjoyed a popular run in London at the Kingsway theatre, in a double bill with an Abbey theatre touring production. Following on from this initial success he wrote a string of plays in the years before the war, the most popular being ‘At the barn’ (1912), produced by the great actress Marie Tempest at the Prince of Wales theatre. Throughout this period he was based in Dublin, where from 1903 he was employed as librarian and second clerk to the RUI. Remaining in this position after the establishment of the NUI in 1908, he held the posts of chief clerk and accountant clerk (1919–21). In 1915 he volunteered as a private in the British army's machine guns corps. He fought in France throughout the war, and was twice wounded.

Having retired from the NUI on a pension, he initially settled in London, before later moving to Ferndown in Dorset. He continued to write, though his post-war plays were not particularly successful. He also turned his hand to fiction, producing short stories, serious fiction and a popular series of detective novels under the name Lynn Brock. The first of these was The deductions of Colonel Gore (1925), which was followed by The Mendip mystery, published in 1929 and staged at Bristol's Little theatre in 1931, and The silver sickle case (1938). A farcical comedy, ‘Needles and pins’, was produced at the Gate in London in 1929. He was also a talented painter and musician. His last play, ‘The O'Cuddy’, was staged at the Abbey theatre, Dublin, in March 1943, but made little impact. He died 6 April 1943 in Doncaster.