Colin Forrester-Paton


The Reverend Colin Forrester-Paton, born at Alloa, Scotland, was a Church of Scotland missionary in Ghana and later Chaplain to H.M. The Queen in Scotland.

Education

He was born at The Gean, a huge mansion near Alloa, the son of Alexander Forrester Paton and his wife, Mary Emma Louise Shaw. The Patons were a very rich family and owner of Patons Cotton Thread Mills. The family house was designed by John Melvin & Son in 1912 as a wedding present for his father from his grandfather.
Forrester-Paton was educated in Moffat, at Gresham's School, Holt, and New College, Oxford, where he gained a first class degree in 1940. He then trained for the ministry at the United Free Church College, Edinburgh, and at the University of London, graduating with a BD degree in 1943. During the Second World War he was a conscientious objector and served as a fireman.

Career

Between 1943 and 1946 Forrester-Paton was secretary of the Student Christian Movement and became interested in missionary work.
He was ordained as a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland in 1944 and in 1946 was sent to Akropong in the Gold Coast by the Church's Missionary Partner Scheme. He taught at the Presbyterian Training College of the Gold Coast and worked for the Presbyterian Church and the Christian Council of Ghana, especially as a translator. He was also stationed at Amedzofe and Sandema in Northern Ghana.
Forrester-Paton left Ghana in 1972 and in 1973 became a Church of Scotland minister in Hawick, Scotland.
In 1981 he was appointed Chaplain to HM the Queen and after his retirement from the active ministry was appointed an Extra Chaplain to HM the Queen in 1988.

Family

In 1943, Forrester-Paton married Jean Lorimer Crichton Miller, who was then working for the Royal Air Force. She joined him in the Gold Coast in 1947 and they had three children: Helen, Keith, and Robin.
Forrester-Paton's grandfather was a rich mill owner, but the family was more concerned with religion than with business and his great-aunt, Catherine Forrester Paton, established a women's missionary training college in Glasgow. One of his uncles was the Ernest Forrester Paton, a Scottish missionary in India.

Papers of Forrester-Paton