John Fordyce

John Fordyce (1819–1902) was a Christian missionary, evangelical minister and administrator who launched the female education initiative in India known as the Zenana Missions. He has been credited with introducing the rickshaw to India. Early life Fordyce was born on 7 March 1819 at Forgue, the fourth son of James Fordyce and Ann (née Adam). Following study at the University of Edinburgh, he became a schoolteacher at Kelso and was a Free Church of Scotland elder and preacher there, closely associated with Rev. Horatius Bonar, in the 1840s. By 1851 he had entered New College, Edinburgh, to study theology, and he was teaching at a private ladies’ academy in the city in 1852. During or prior to this period he came to the notice of Rev. Dr Alexander Duff who contrived his appointment, by the Free Church Ladies’ Committee for the Promotion of Female Education in India, as Superintendent of the Calcutta Female Institution.