Item 0022 - Letter, 3 September 1884

Andrew Martin Fairbairn was born on November 4, 1838, in Inverkeithing, Fife, Scotland.

He was a Scottish theological scholar. He 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 Aberdeen. He became principal of Airedale College, Bradford, England (1877-1886) and the first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. He delivered the Muir lectures at Edinburgh University (1878–1882), the Gifford lectures at Aberdeen (1892–1894), the Lyman Beecher lecture at Yale (1891–1892), and the Haskell lectures in India (1898–1899). He was a member of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1894–1895), and of the Royal Commission on the Endowments of the Welsh Church in 1906. In 1883, he was chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. He was a prolific writer on theological subjects. He was awarded Doctor of Divinity degrees from Edinburgh and Yale universities, and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Aberdeen.

In 1868, he married Jane Young Shields (1843–1927). He died on February 9, 1912, in London, England.