BORN into a Lothian mining family that was in part Presbyterian and in part Roman Catholic, Andrew Ross was a life-long ecumenist and a tireless fighter for human justice.
After education at Dalkeith High School and the University of Edinburgh, w
here he studied history, he did national service in the RAF then returned to the university as a ministerial candidate, now married to his fellow history student, Joyce. A further year in New York combined study at Union Theological Seminary with student ministry in the deprived black neighbourhood of East Harlem Protestant Parish.
Ordained by the Church of Scotland in 1958, he ministered for seven years in the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian in Nyasaland/Malawi. Immersing himself in African culture and its distinctive Christianity, identifying himself with his new neighbours and their struggles and becoming fluent in their language, he served the Church and the nation of his adoption. He chaired the Lands Tribunal and the National Tenders Board. However, his Malawian patriotism, which made him an active supporter of the country's independence, later led him to resist the growing oppression of its first president, Hastings Banda, whose regime forced his departure in 1965.
Back in Scotland, a year's senior studentship in Edinburgh University's department of history led quickly to his appointment in 1966 in the Faculty of Divinity's department of ecclesiastical history as the UK's first designated lecturer in the history of missions. Thus he became part, with Professor Alec Cheyne, David Wright and, later, Dr Peter Matheson, of the "Cheyne gang". Together they transformed teaching and research in church history in Scotland, with a highly professional emphasis on close work with documents, sound historical methodology and a global perspective.
From the start and throughout the following 32 years until his retiral in 1988 (indeed the 42 years until his death) he was a "freeman" of the whole university. In the late 1960s, as an assistant warden in the new Pollock Halls, a leading light in the Labour Club and a long-distance runner now involved in the university's football team (destined to become its coach and honorary president), he was greatly trusted by the 1968 student protesters, whom he supported but whose "juvenility" he challenged, thus contributing much to a productive and peaceful outcome.
It was no surprise, therefore, that this relatively new lecturer went on to become, from 1971-74, a member of the university court (at that time chaired by his friend, the first student rector, Gordon Brown), and later became dean of divinity and principal of New College from 1978-84, as well as convener or member of several key university committees.
He was highly popular with his students on account of his personal concern for and rapport with them, and because of his eloquence and passion as a lecturer, his skills already well honed on public platforms and broadcast studios as a political advocate. His teaching was informed by painstaking research and rich personal experience around the world.
He told his students to stop taking notes and listen, as education was not about passing exams but about enlarging minds, inspiring lives and changing the world. Many remember his long-running courses on "The Church in the Modern World" and "Christianity, Race and Slavery, 1800-60".
His teaching was broad. While his heart was in central Africa (where he was an adopted member of the Ngoni tribe and where his young daughter is buried), his scholarly interest in North America and east Asia was no less strong; he was a visiting lecturer in many lands and his global knowledge was recognised in his appointment as deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non- Western World from 1986-98.
In addition to many other writings, he wrote four major books. In John Philip (1775-1851): Missions, Race and Politics in South Africa (Aberdeen University Press, 1986), a minor classic, he gives an engaging account of the working-class Fifer who, as a missionary with the London Missionary Society, played a leading role in ending slavery and bringing legal equality to the peoples of the British Cape Colony. In A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742 (Edinburgh University Press, 1994) he describes those pioneering missionaries who adapted the Christian message to Chinese and Japanese cultures, until their European masters undid their good work. In The Blantyre Mission and the Making of Modern Malawi (Blantyre, Malawi: Claim Press, 1996) he explores the role of the Church of Scotland mission in educating African leaders and shaping political as well as religious institutions. Finally, David Livingstone: Mission and Empire (London: Hambleton, 2002) is reckoned to be the best biography of the celebrated missionary and explorer. It captures the man, warts and all, and shows how his Scottish roots, Lowland and Highland, including clan-based folk tales of loyalty and endurance, helped to give Livingstone a unique understanding of the tribal cultures of Africa.
It was while watching his beloved university football team that Ross first suffered the effects of the disease that was rapidly to end his full life. He is survived by his wife, Joyce, and their four sons, Gavin, Malcolm, Diarmid and Alistair.
