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 Church of Scotland Ministers B
| Date transcribed | 2011-00-00 | | Transcribed by | Peter Schofield | | Comment | List of Ministers of the Church of Scotland who served in India and South Asia extracted from Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae |
| | Section | India  | | | Volume No. | 7 | | | Page No. | 711 | | | Surname | Wilson | | | Christian Name(s) | John | | | Wife 1 Surname | Bayne | | | Wife 1 Christian name(s) | Margaret | | | Children to 1st Wife Christian name(s) | Andrew | | | Father-in-law 1 Surname | Bayne | | | Father-in-law 1 Christian name(s) | Kenneth | | | Wife 2 Surname | Dennistoun | | | Wife 2 Christian name(s) | Isabella | | | Father-in-law 2 Surname | Dennistoun | | | Father-in-law remarks | Kenneth Bayne, minister of the Gaelic Parish, Greenock | | | Body of text | WILSON, JOHN, born Lauder, Berwickshire, 11th December 1804, son of Andrew W, farmer, and Janet, daughter of James Hunter, farmer; educated at Lauder School [the schoolmaster, Alexander Paterson (a native of Earlston parish) exerted an extraordinarily inspiring influence over his pupils, many of whom entered the ministry] and University of Edinburgh (surgery and medicine being among his subjects); taught a school at Horndean on-Tweed during his summer vacations, and was afterwards tutor in the manse of Stow; licensed by Presbytery of Earlston in 1828; ordained agent of the Scottish Missionary Society 24th June that year and arrived at Bombay 14th February 1829; transferred to the Church of Scotland Mission at Bombay in 1835; DD (Edinburgh, 20th April 1836). Joined the Free Church in 1843; FRS (7th February 1845); President of the Cave Temple Commission, 1848-61; Fellow of Bombay University 1857; Vice-Chancellor 1868; elected Moderator of the Free Church General Assembly 19th May 1870; died at The Cliff, near Bombay, 1st December 1875 and was buried in the Old Scottish burial-ground. One of the most industrious and indomitable of missionaries, he gave himself to the work with apostolic enthusiasm and energy, scarcely ever halting during his long-extended career. Specially devoted to vernacular education, he set himself to acquire the dialects of a varied population, with whom he was able to converse with ease and fluency. He was the first to establish schools for native girls and a native church on Presbyterian principles. In 1832 he founded a more advanced institution, out of which grew the well-known College called by his name. He made considerable journeys throughout his own and other Presidencies, collecting manuscripts and amassing Oriental knowledge. Apart from his purely missionary labours, his work of examining the antiquities of the cave temples, his deciphering of the hitherto unsolved rock inscriptions of Asoka, at Girnar, and, during the Mutiny, his expiscation of the rebels' cryptic correspondence, and a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1843, were principal incidents in his well-filled life. He was one of the most learned of Asiatic scholars and a leading member (President of Bombay branch 1835-42) of the Royal Asiatic Society. His private life was ennobled by a truly religious spirit, and his influence radiated over the whole of India. He married (1) 12th August 1828, Margaret, author of Account of the Ancient Egyptians [in Marathi] (Bombay 1839) (died 19th April 1835), daughter of Kenneth Bayne, minister of the Gaelic Parish, Greenock, and had issue - Andrew, Oriental traveller, editor of the Times of India, author of The Abode of Snow (1875) and other works, born 1831, died at Howton on Ullswater 9th June 1881: (2) September 1846, Isabella (died without issue September 1867), second daughter of James Dennistoun of Dennistoun. Publications - Encouragement to Active Missionary Exertions [anon.] (Edinburgh, 1827); The Life of John Eliot, Apostle of the Indians [anon.] (Edinburgh, 1828); An Exposure of the Hindu Religion (Bombay, 1832); A Second Exposure of the Hindu Religion (Bombay, 1834); Missionary Journey in Gujrat and Cutch (Bombay, 1838); Memoir of Mrs Margaret Wilson (Edinburgh, 1838, 1840, 1858, 1860); Idiomatical Exercises illustrative of the English and Marathi Languages (Bombay, 1839); The Pársi Religion ... unfolded, refuted, and contrasted with Christianity (Bombay, 1843); The Doctrine of Jehovah, addressed to the Pársis (Bombay, 1847); The Lands of the Bible Visited, 2 vols, (Edinburgh, 1847); The Evangelisation of India (Edinburgh, 1849); ""A Memoir on the Cave Temples and Monasteries, and other Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaine Remains of Western India"" (Journ. Bombay Asiatic Soc, iii, reprinted in 1850); Darkness and Dawn in India (Bombay, 1853); History of the Suppression of Infanticide in Western India (Bombay, 1855); Sermon at the Baptism of a Pársi Youth (Bombay, 1856); India Three Thousand Years Ago (Bombay, 1858; Assembly Addresses (Edinburgh, 1870); A Poetical Address to India (Bombay, 1872); Indian Caste [edited by Peter Paterson], 2 vols. (Bombay, 1877, Edinburgh, 1878); Hazer and Hazor in the Scriptures (nd). He founded the 0riental Christian Spectator, 1830. Contributed articles to the Bombay Quarterly Review, British and Foreign Evangelical Review, and North British Review. [Life by George Smith, LLD, CIE (London, 1879); Marrat's Two Standard Bearers in the East (1882); Dict Nat Biog]
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List of Ministers of the Church of Scotland who served in India or South Asia extracted from Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae
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