his will he left 1000l. to the Science Schools Fund of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Rosse telescope and all his scientific instruments, apparatus, and papers to his sons in order of seniority, successively, whom failing, to the Royal Society. He left 2000l. upon trust for the upkeep of the telescope.
[Proc. Roy. Soc, vol. lxxxiii., A. and Catal. Sci. Papers; Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc, vol. lxix.; Roy. Irish Acad. Minutes, session 1908-9, pp. 1, 8; Proc. Inst. Mechan. Eng. 1908; Roy. Soc. Arts Journ., vol. lvi.; The Observatory, Oct. 1908; Engineering, 4 Sept. 1908; Nature, vol. lxxxviii.; The Times, 31 Aug., 3 Sept., 17 Dec. 1908.]
PATON, JOHN BROWN (1830–1911), nonconformist divine and philanthropist, son of Alexander Paton by his wife Mary, daughter of Andrew Brown of Newmilns, Ayrshire, was born on 17 Dec. 1830 at Galston, Ayrshire. On his father's side he was descended from James Paton (d. 1684) [q. v.], on his mother's from John Brown (1627?–1685) [q. v.], 'the Christian carrier.' Both his parents, who were brought up in distinct seceding bodies (burgher and anti-burgher), now belonged to the united secession church, Newmilns. The father ultimately joined the congregationalists. From Loudon parish school Paton passed in 1838 to the tuition of his maternal uncle, Andrew Morton Brown, D.D., congregational minister, then
at Poole, Dorset. In 1844 Paton was at Kilmarnock, where he met Alexander Russel [q. v.], and came under the spell of James Morison (1816-1893) [q. v.]. Returning in 1844 to his uncle's care, now at Cheltenham, Paton's future career was determined by the influence of Henry Rogers (1806-1877) [q. v.]. Deciding to become a congregational minister, he entered in Jan. 1847 Spring Hill College, Birmingham (now Mansfield College, Oxford), in which Rogers held the chair of literature and philosophy. With his fellow-student, Robert William Dale [q. v. Suppl. I], he formed a close and lifelong friendship. He heard Emerson lecture on the 'Conduct of Life' in the Birmingham town hall, and attended (from 1850) the ministry of Robert Alfred Vaughan [q. v.], to whose 'intense spirituality' he owed much. During his college course he graduated B.A. at London University in 1849; gained the Hebrew and New Testament prize there (1850), and a divinity scholarship (1852) on the foundation of Daniel Williams (1643?-1716) [q. v.], and proceeded M.A. London in 1854, both in classics and in philosophy (with gold medal).
Leaving college in June 1854 he took charge of a mission in Wicker, a parish in the northern part of Sheffield. His ministry was eminently successful; the Wicker congregational church was built in 1855; in addition, the congregation in Garden Street chapel, Sheffield, was revived. In 1861 Cavendish College, Manchester, was started for the training of candidates for the congregational ministry; Paton went weekly from Sheffield to take part in its professorial work. In 1863 the institution was transferred to Nottingham as the Congregational Institute, with Paton as its first principal. Temporary premises were exchanged for a permanent building (1868), and the institute gained increasing reputation during the thirty-five years of Paton's headship. In his management of young men he was an ideal head; no feature of his teaching was more marked than the skill and judgment with which he conducted the work of sermon-making and delivery. In 1882 he was made D.D. of Glasgow University. On his retirement in 1898 his portrait by Amesby Brown, promoted by a committee headed by the archbishop of Canterbury (Temple), was presented on 26 Oct. 1898 by the bishop of Hereford (Percival) to the city of Nottingham, and is now in the Castle Museum (a replica was given to Paton).
Paton's beneficent activity took other than denominational directions. A visit to Kaiserswerth had impressed him with the idea of the co-operation of all creeds to bring the influence of religion to the regeneration of society. In conjunction with Canon Morse, vicar of St. Mary's, Nottingham, he promoted a series of university lectures which led the way to the establishment of the Nottingham University College in 1880. It was due to Paton's suggestion that the bishop of Lincoln (Wordsworth) sent a letter of sympathy in 1872 to the Old Catholics (Marchant, p. 289). Greatly interested in the Inner Mission, founded in 1848 by Dr. Wichern of Hamburg, he took an active share in plans for the raising of social conditions, e.g. home colonisation with small land-holders, the co-operative banks movement, the social purity crusade. Among societies of which he was the founder were the 'National Home Reading Union' (1889), suggested by the account given by Sir Joshua Girling Fitch [q. v. Suppl. II] of 'The Chautauqua Reading Circle' in the 'Nineteenth Century,' Oct. 1888. He also
