Thomas Nairn
controversial Scottish Presbyterian minister
Thomas Nairn (c. 1680 - February 1764) was a controversial Scottish Presbyterian minister. Although he served in several Presbyterian denominations perhaps his most important contribution to church history was his role in setting up the organisation which eventually became the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Although his stay with the Reformed Presbyterians was relatively short, he was acknowledged, by right of his valid ordination, to have the authority, along with John M'Millan, to form a legitimate presbytery and in so doing to be able to ordain others to the offices of the church. Before Nairn's arrival M'Millan had for more than 36 years been the only minister in what was essentially a small denomination known as the United Societies. Nairn had previously been a minister in the Associate Presbytery of the First Seceders, although he started and ended his days in the Church of Scotland.
Biographical data
Thomas Nairn (sometime spelled Nairne) was born about 1680. He was the son of Samuel Nairn, minister of Errol. Thomas was educated at St Andrews University, graduating with an M.A. on 19 July 1702. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Cupar on 27 September 1708 and called 26 June, and ordained to Abbotshall, Kirkcaldy on 7 September 1710.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q97403930. VIAF identifies the subject as 68803165. The Library of Congress control number is nr93027841. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1680, 1764, 1702 and 1708.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Nairn” 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.