The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Gosman, Rev. Alexander
Gosman, Rev. Alexander, was born in Crail, Fifeshire, on Feb. 21st, 1829, and received his education at the parish school. After some commercial and tutorial experience, he studied for the ministry at the University of Glasgow, and at the Theological Hall of the Scottish Congregational Union. His first charge was in Haddington, East Lothian, where he was ordained to the ministry in 1855. In 1860 he left Scotland for Victoria, under the auspices of the London Colonial Missionary Society, and arrived in Melbourne in September. His first colonial charge was in Ballarat, where he remained for three years. In 1863 he became pastor of the Alma Street Congregational Church, St. Kilda, which position he filled until the end of 1877, when he removed to his present charge as pastor of the Augustine Church, Burwood Road, Hawthorn. Mr. Gosman, in 1868 and subsequently, did valuable professorial work in connection with the Congregational College, and on the death of Rev. A. M. Henderson, in 1876, became principal of the institution. Mr. Gosman has been twice elected to fill the chair of the Congregational Union of Victoria, and in 1885 the council of the University of Melbourne placed him on the board of examiners in logic and philosophy, to which position he has been elected every year since. Mr. Gosman has contributed to the colonial press, and has published a number of pamphlets, principally of a controversial character.