The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Cairns, Rev. Adam
Cairns, Rev. Adam, D.D., was born at Longforgan, Perthshire, Scotland (of which parish his father was minister) on Jan. 30th, 1802. He was educated at the parish school and by his father, and went to St. Andrews in 1814 and to Edinburgh University in 1818. In 1823 he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Cupar, and acted as assistant to the Rev. Sir H. W. Moncrieff, in West Church parish, Edinburgh, till the latter's death in 1827. He was ordained minister of Minor in Tweeddale in 1828, and was translated in 1833 to Dunbog, in Fife, where he married Miss Jessie Ballingall, of Ayton. In 1837 he became minister of Cupar. At the disruption in 1843 he sided with the Free Church, and was employed in important parochial work until 1853, when he accepted a commission from the Colonial Committee of the Free Church to proceed to Melbourne, where he arrived in September of that year. There, amidst the excitement of the gold fever, he laid the foundations of Presbyterianism in Victoria, acting as pastor of the Chalmers Church Congregation till 1865, when, his health failing, he became an emeritus minister, retaining his standing in the Church without pastoral charge. He died on Jan. 30th, 1881.