Birth name | Alexander Stevenson Blair | ||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 3 June 1865 | ||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Edinburgh, Scotland | ||||||||||||||||
Date of death | 10 September 1936 | (aged 60)||||||||||||||||
Place of death | Edinburgh, Scotland | ||||||||||||||||
School | Loretto School | ||||||||||||||||
University | Brasenose College, Oxford | ||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||
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36th President of the Scottish Rugby Union | |||||||||||||||||
In office 1909–1910 | |||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | David Cassels | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Charles Fleming | ||||||||||||||||
Alexander Blair was a Scottish rugby union player. He was the 36th President of the Scottish Rugby Union. He became a Colonel in the army and then became President of the British Legion and Chairman of the Earl Haig Fund. An advocate to trade he was a Writer to the Signet. He received a CBE in the New Years Honours List of 1933.[1]
After attending Loretto School,[2] Blair went to Brasenose College in Oxford.[3] He played for Oxford University,[4] and was in the 1st XV.[5] He was secretary of both the rugby and athletics club of the university.[1]
He was Secretary of the Scottish Rugby Union for 4 years from 1886.[1]
Blair was on the International Rugby Board in 1889.[6]
He became the 36th President of the Scottish Rugby Union. He served one year from 1909 to 1910.[7]
First as Lieutenant Colonel, then Colonel, Blair commanded the 'Dandy Ninth', the Lothian Regiment of the Royal Scots, in the First World War.[8] In 1916 he was awarded a CMG.[1]
After the war he joined the British Legion where he became treasurer in Scotland.
Blair's firm, Strathearn and Blair, acted as solicitors for the Scottish Rugby Union.[9] Blair was a Writer to the Signet.[1]
He is buried in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.[10]