Athelstan Bisset was born in Goderich, Ontario in 1883 but spent his first ten years with his pioneer family in North Dakota. In 1893, the Bisset family returned to Canada, this time homesteading in Strathcona, Northwest Territories where Athelstan graduated from Strathcona High School. He then attended Regina Normal School in 1901-02 and ultimately earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster University in 1909. He subsequently articled in law in Edmonton, won the Chief Justice’s Gold Medal in Law, and was admitted to the Alberta Bar in 1916. Until this point, Athelstan supported himself by working as a carpenter, farmer, baker, teacher, coal miner, and factory worker.

Athelstan’s budding legal career with the Downes and Markes Law Firm was temporarily delayed when he served for three years with the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s Forestry Corps in Scotland during the First World War. Upon his return, Athelstan formed a partnership with George Young and the two founded Young and Bisset Law Firm, which lasted until 1952.

Athelstan also served as an Edmonton Alderman from 1934 to 1935, 1936 to 1938, and then 1940 to 1952. He was appointed King’s Counsel in 1943 and became a judge of Family Court of the City of Edmonton in 1952 and later judge of Juvenile Court of Alberta.

Athelstan was also active with the United Church and was elected as a church elder in 1916. He served the Church as a Sunday school instructor over the course of his life.

Athelstan married Mary Sinclair Scott in 1925 and the couple had three children. Athelstan also had children from a previous marriage, including Robert Clare Bisset, a pilot with the Royal Air Force who was reported missing in action in 1941. Athelstan Bisset died in 1973. The Edmonton Public School Board then named the Bisset School in his honour.