Andrew Martin Fairbairn

Andrew Martin Fairbairn, FBA (4 November 18389 February 1912) was a Scottish theological scholar, born near Edinburgh. He was the principal of Mansfield College, Oxford.

Education Fairbairn was educated at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Berlin, and at the Evangelical Union Theological Academy in Glasgow. He entered the Congregational church ministry and held pastorates at Bathgate, West Lothian and at Aberdeen.

Educator From 1877 to 1886 he was principal of Airedale College, Bradford, England, a post which he gave up to become the first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. In the transference to the University of Oxford of the existing Spring Hill College, Birmingham, he took a considerable part, and he exercised influence not only over generations of his own students (most famous of which is probably Peter Taylor Forsyth), but also over a large number of undergraduates in the university generally. He was granted the degree of M.A. by a decree of Convocation, and in January 1903 received an honorary Doctor of Literature (D.Litt) degree.From January 1903 he was a lecturer in Classical Archaeology. He was also awarded Doctor of Divinity degrees from Edinburgh and Yale universities, and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Aberdeen.

Works Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History (1876) Studies in the Life of Christ (1881) Religion in History and in Modern Life (1884; rev. 1893) Christ in Modern Theology (1893) Christ in the Centuries (1893) Catholicism Roman and Anglican (1899) Philosophy of the Christian Religion (1902)