Author: Fairbairn, John Clarkson
Biography:
FAIRBAIRN, John Clarkson (1809-73: ancestry.co.uk)
The second child of Thomas Fairbairn (1770-1834) and his wife Margaret Clarkson (1770-1844), he was born at Edinburgh on 4 Dec. 1809. Fairbairn was educated at the Edinburgh high school before entering Edinburgh university where he was taught by John Wilson (q.v.). He was licensed to preach by the Church of Scotland in 1837 and took up duties at the Tolbooth parish in Edinburgh; he also spent a year at the parish at Liberton. The 1841 Census shows him living at 30 South Castle Street in Edinburgh with his mother, her sister, and his three siblings. In 1842 he edited the Christian Miscellany. Fairbairn became a travelling secretary for the Edinburgh Bible Society and in the “Great Disruption” of 1843 when evangelical ministers split from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church, he sided with the evangelicals. He was appointed to the parish at Allanton, Berwickshire (now the Scottish Borders), and moved to the manse. On 6 Oct. 1845 he married Margaret Wilson (1808-94); they had three daughters born in 1846, 1849, and 1852. He died at home on 27 Sept. 1873, “in the 64th year of his age and the 30th of his ministry” (Paisley Herald). Winter Leaves, written with his friend Charles MacDouall (q.v.) and dedicated to Professor Wilson, met with a severely negative review in Fraser’s Magazine; attributed to W. M. Thackeray, it ranks the verse as “decidedly fit for nothing.” Undeterred, Fairbairn published three more volumes of verse: Songs for Wayfarers (1846), Sabbath Scenes and Meditations (1859), and Hymns and Poems (1859). The latter includes an advertisement for Sabbath Scenes with quotations from six positive reviews praising Fairbairn’s “divine gift.” (ancestry.co.uk 12 Sept. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 12 Sept. 2024; Fraser’s Magazine 11 [1835], 719-20; David Herschell Edwards, One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets [1884]; Paisley Herald 4 Oct. 1873) SR