Robert Falconer
Canadian theologian and historian (1867–1943)
Sir Robert Alexander Falconer (10 February 1867 – 4 November 1943) was a Canadian academic, Calvinist and bible scholar who was the fifth president of the University of Toronto, serving from 1907 to 1932.
Early life
Of Scottish descent, Falconer was born on February 10, 1867, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the eldest child of a Presbyterian minister and his wife. He attended high school in Port of Spain, Trinidad while his father was posted there and won a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He graduated MA in 1889 and then spent three years at the divinity school of the Free Church of Scotland.
Career
Falconer was ordained in 1892 but never held a clerical position. He returned to Canada that year and took a lecturership in New Testament Greek and exegesis at the Presbyterian College in Halifax. He also began to publish articles in learned journals. In 1902 Falconer received a D.Litt. from Edinburgh University.
Advocacy and knighthood
In 1907 he became president of the University of Toronto.
“Robert Falconer” enters the record as canadian theologian and historian (1867–1943). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Falconer and Canadian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14948926. VIAF identifies the subject as 72191719. The Library of Congress control number is nr89002878. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1867, 1943, 1907 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Falconer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.