author
John Morrison
b. 1856
A Scottish missionary-scholar, he wrote about the social, political, and religious changes reshaping India under British rule. His best-known book, New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century, grew out of lectures delivered in Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1904–05.
1 Audiobook
About the author
John Morrison was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and writer active in the early 20th century. The title page of New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century identifies him as Rev. John Morrison, M.A., D.D., and notes that he was formerly principal of the General Assembly's Institution of the Church of Scotland Mission in Calcutta, as well as a member of the Senate of the University of Calcutta.
His best-known work, published by Macmillan in 1907, studies the social, political, and religious developments that transformed India during the 19th century. The book began as a series of lectures delivered at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1904–05 session, which helps explain its clear, thoughtful, lecture-like style.
Because readily available biographical sources for this John Morrison are limited, some personal details remain uncertain. Even so, his published work shows him as an engaged observer of colonial India, writing for readers who wanted to understand how modern ideas, education, religion, and public life were changing the subcontinent.