John Wilson

John Wilson FRS (11 December 1804 – 1 December 1875) was a Scottish Christian missionary, orientalist, ethnographer, and Christian minister. He was the member of The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.

He was elected Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland in 1870.

Early life and influence of Christianity John Wilson was born in Lauder on 11 December 1804, the eldest of four brothers and three sisters, and grew up in a farming family.

His father, Andrew Wilson was a councilor of the burgh for over forty years and represented the parish church as an elder.

The family grew up in Lauder on a hill farm sprawled across seventeen hundred acres (1700 acres).

In school he was considered 'the priest' on the playground because was often seen preaching to his classmates. His being advanced for his age sometimes caused him trouble, and his preaching was sometimes seen as an offence.

Education As a child Wilson revealed that he was more intelligent than his siblings, learning to walk and talk at an early age.

When Wilson was four, he started at a school in Lauder, taught by a George Murray. He was only there for a year before he was moved to a parish school to be taught by Roman Catholic bishop Alexander Paterson under whom he progressed in his spiritual life. Mr. Paterson affected not only his students' spiritually but also the community.

He left school at the age of fourteen, the standard end of school in Scotland in the 19th century.

From 1819 he attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied linguistics, philosophy and theology for eight years, and also mastered the languages of Gujarati, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Urdu, Hindi, Persian, Arabic and Zend. He graduated from the university in 1828.

Arrival in India and Early Missionary activities

Rev. Dr John Wilson dressing for an early photograph by David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson

In 1829, a year after his graduation, Wilson and his wife went to Bombay as Christian missionaries supported by the Church of Scotland.

The couple first studied Marathi at Harnai; then in 1831 they moved back to Bombay, where Wilson established the Ambroli Church for the people.

During 1830-1831, Wilson engaged in debates with Hindu apologists in Bombay.

In 1830, his protege Ram Chandra, a Hindu convert to Christianity, debated with several Hindu Brahmin apologists in public. With this school he was able to introduce European education, examinations and textbooks to the people of the city. In September 1846, Dr Wilson married Isabella who was the second daughter of Scottish advocate James Dennistoun of Dennistoun. She died in 1867 and he was then joined in India by her niece, Miss Taylor.

Writings Wilson was the author of many books. Early in his mission he started a periodical about religion, society, culture and European thought, called The Oriental Christian Spectator, which ran from 1830 to 1862.

In 1838 he wrote A Memoir of Mrs. Margret Wilson, and in 1850 a Memoir of the Cave Temples and Monasteries and Ancient Remains in Western India.

In 1858 he wrote, India Three Thousand Years Ago. As the years went on he wrote many books, including Parsi Religion (1843), Evangelisation of India (1849), History of the Suppression of Female Infanticide in Western India (1855), Aboriginal Tribes of The Bombay Presidency (1876) and Indian Caste (1877).

As an archaeologist, Wilson wrote the 1847 Lands of the Bible: Visited and Described, the 1861 Caves of Karla (on the Karla Caves), and the 1875 Religious Excavations of Western India: Buddhist, Brahamanical and Jaina.

He also published a small account about the origins of the Bene Israel Jewish community of the Konkan region in 1838. 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 Parsi Religion . . . unfolded, refuted, and contrasted with Christianity (Bombay, 1843) The Doctrine of Jehovah, addressed to the Parsis (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 Parsi 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 (n.d.). He founded the Oriental Christian Spectator, 1830. Contributed articles to the Bombay Quarterly Review, British and Foreign Evangelical Review, and North British Review.