Paton, JOHN GIBSON, missionary to the New Hebrides, the son of a stocking-maker, was born in the parish of Kirkmahoe, Dumfriesshire, 24th May 1824. After some experience in Glasgow City Mission, he offered his services for the foreign mission field in connection with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and on his ordination he settled down towards the end of 1858 amongst the cannibal natives of Tanna. Here he laboured amidst trials and difficulties till 1862, when he was forced to leave, owing to the hostility of the natives.
For the next twenty years his work was on the neighbouring island of Aniwa, the whole population of which became Christian. Both by voice and pen he afterwards attracted public attention and sympathy towards this field of mission labour; and his brother published and edited his graphic and thrilling missionary narratives, 1st and 2d series (1890). In 1891 he was made a D.D. of Edinburgh.