Alison was born in 1919 in Reading and was brought up there by her parents, Professor Robert Dewar and his wife Edith. Reading was her home until 1943. when she married Arthur Adcock, whom she met when he was a graduate student in King’s College Cambridge and she was studying Classics in Girton College.
They married in the church of Dorney, near Windsor, where Arthur was vicar, and they lived there for 17 years; their three daughters, Elspeth, Jacquie and Nicky were born there. In 1960 Arthur became Vicar of Yarnton, where they lived till Arthur retired in 1985 and they moved to Wolvercote. Arthur died in 1989, but Alison lived on there till 2014, when she moved to the Lady Nuffield Home in Oxford. She lived in the home till she died on August 5th 2020 at the age of 101.
 
Alison was a faithful member of the Church of England. She attended and made her communion regularly, and she was delighted when she was able, in 1966, to begin to study theology seriously and take the B.D. qualifying exam in Theology.  In 1970 she was one of the first four women in Oxford Diocese who were licensed as Lay Readers, able to preach and teach, to conduct funerals and take morning and evening prayer. In 1975 she was elected by Oxford Diocese to the General Synod of the Church of England.
 
She was an active member of the Movement for the Ordination of Women and also involved herself in matters green and ecological. When Alison was widowed in 1989 she continued to be active in church affairs, and became a keen participant in Oxford University’s courses in continuing education, especially in architecture, art, history and religion. Alison had five granddaughters and five great-grandchildren.