George Smeaton (1814-89) was born in Berwickshire, studied at Edinburgh University, and was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland at Falkland in Fife in 1839. He was among those hundreds of ministers who came out at the Disruption in 1843 to form the Free Church of Scotland, and later that year was inducted to Auchterarder Free Church. He was appointed to the Chair of Divinity at the Free Church College in Aberdeen in 1853, and in 1857 became Professor of New Testament Exegesis at New College, Edinburgh, holding this post until his death in 1889.
His works on the atonement for which he is best known – The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement and Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement – are published by the Trust, together with his The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.