Andrew A. Bonar was born in Edinburgh on 29 May 1810. He attended the city's Royal High School and in 1831 he entered Divinity Hall. That same year he and others started the Exegetical Society for the purpose of Bible criticism. On finishing his studies in 1835 he began pastoral work in Jedburgh, and in 1836 he became engaged as a missionary assistant to Dr. Robert Smith Candlish in St.George's, in Edinburgh. Bonar was ordained at Collace, Perthshire, in 1838. The following year in 1839 he was part of a Church of Scotland deputation working with Jews in Europe and in Palestine. In 1856 he was working in Finnieston, Glasgow. His publications included, with with Robert Murray McCheyne Narrative of a mission of inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839, the tract The cup of wrath, Scots worthies, The Brook Besor, The near way to the city, and The Gospel pointing to the Person of Christ . The Rev. Andrew A. Bonar died on 31 December 1892.
From the guide to the Papers of Rev. Andrew A. Bonar (1810-1892), 1835-1891, (Edinburgh University Library)