John Anderson (1805–1855) was a Scottish missionary and the founder of the mission of the Free Church of Scotland at Madras, India. Early life and education John Anderson was born at Craig Farm, Kirkpatrick Durham, in Galloway, on 23 May 1805. He was the eldest son in a family of nine, his father being blind. He received the rudiments of his education in the parish schools, and in his twenty-second year entered the University of Edinburgh, where he obtained prizes in Latin and in moral philosophy, distinguishing himself by his facility in Latin composition, and studying theology and church history under Thomas Chalmers and David Welch. During part of this period he taught at the Mariners' School at Leith; was tutor in the family of Alexander Cowan, Callander, and at Troqueer Holm on the Nith Early ministry Anderson was licensed by the Presbytery of Dumfries on 3 May 1836. He volunteered for service in India (impelled chiefly by Dr Duff's missionary address to the General Assembly). He was appointed by the Foreign Mission Committee 28 June, and ordainted on 13 July 1836. Travelling to India, he sailed in the Scotia on 13 August 1836. He arrived at Calcutta on 27 December and Madras 22 February 1837. On 3 April he took charge of St Andrew's School (established by two Scottish chaplains, Matthew Bowie and George James Lawrie in 1835) beginning his labours as a missionary with fifty-nine Hindu boys and young men — the nucleus of the Madras Christian College. Educationalist The branch of missionary work to which Anderson devoted himself, was education. At that time the standard of education among the natives of the Madras presidency was very low. Anderson's object, as stated in the prospectus of the first mission school opened by him at Madras, was ‘to convey through the channel of a good education as great an amount of truth as possible to the native mind, and especially of Bible truth,’ the ultimate aim being ‘that each of these institutions shall be a normal seminary in which teachers and preachers may be trained up to convey to their benighted countrymen the benefit of a sound education and the blessings of the gospel of Christ.’ Anderson laid great stress upon education and native preachers in all missionary effort. The first school established by Anderson, which formed the nucleus of the institution now known as the Madras Christian College,