John Brown Paton

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For other persons named John Paton, see John Paton (disambiguation).

John Brown Paton (1830 – 1911), English Nonconformist theologian, was born on the 17 December 1830.

He was educated at London, Poole and Spring Hill College, Birmingham; he graduated B.A. at the University of London in 1849, and was Hebrew and New Testament prizeman in 1850 and gold medallist in philosophy in 1854. He received the honorary degree of doctor of divinity from the University of Glasgow in 1881. When the Nottingham Congregational Institute was founded in 1863 he became the first principal, a post which he held until 1898, when he was succeeded by James Alexander Mitchell (1849-1905), who from 1903 until his death was general secretary of the Congregational Union.

Paton became vice-president of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1907. He took an active part in the foundation and direction of a number of societies for religious and social work, notably the National Home Reading Union Society and English Land Colonization Society, and was a constant contributor to literary reviews. His publications include The Two-fold Alternative (3rd ed., 1900), The Inner Mission of the Church (new ed., 1900), and two volumes of collected essays. His son, John Lewis Paton (b. 1863), who headed the Cambridge classical tripos in 1886, became High Master of Manchester Grammar School in 1903.