John Arthur

John William Arthur
Captain John Arthur, commander of the Kikuyu Mission Carrier Corps
Born	1881 Glasgow
Died	1952 (aged 70–71) Edinburgh
Nationality	British
Occupation	Medical missionary

John William Arthur OBE (born Glasgow, 1881, died Edinburgh, 1952) was a medical missionary and Church of Scotland minister who served in British East Africa (Kenya) from 1907 to 1937. He was known simply as "Doctor Arthur" to generations of Africans.

John William Arthur was the son of John W. Arthur, a Glasgow businessman of firm evangelical Christian convictions. Arthur wanted to be a missionary from an early age. He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 1903. He graduated with the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1906. He was ordained (following a special short course in theology) as a minister of the Church of Scotland in 1915 and was married in 1921.

Arthur was appointed to the post of medical missionary at the Kikuyu Mission, British East Africa (Kenya), in 1906, arriving at the mission on 1 January 1907. He opened the mission's first hospital and became involved with its evangelistic and educational began work on the first school on the Kikuyu Mission Station within six weeks of his arrival in Kenya. One of the many Africans influenced by Arthur and the mission was Jomo Kenyatta, who was a student at the mission station school. Arthur performed surgery on Kenyatta, when the latter was still known as Johnstone Kamau. Kenyatta was a student in his early years in the mission, but the Church demanded that if he went on to secondary school that he should join the Church, but Kenyatta refused and became a clerk in Nairobi. In later years, Kenyatta spoke warmly of the Kikuyu Mission station as the pioneer centre of Kenyan education.