George Davidson Buchanan was an American Presbyterian clergyman who spent about 20 years in Australia from 1883. He was born at Oskaloosa, Ohio, in 1853, and was educated at Waynesburg College, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a B.A. He then went on to study for the bar and briefly practiced as an attorney, before entering the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, where he graduated in 1879. He was inducted as pastor at the Aisquith Street Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, in November 1879, and remained there until 1883, when he came to Australia to take up an appointment at the Cairns Memorial Presbyterian Church, Melbourne. He was subsequently pastor at the Wickham Terrace Presbyterian Church, Brisbane (1889-1897), Chalmers Street Presbyterian Church, Sydney (1897-1899), and St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Goulburn, N.S.W. (1899-1900). He then spent a brief period in Western Australia.
From all accounts, Buchanan was a gifted orator, and the faithful flocked in droves to hear his highly dramatic and colourful sermons (on one occasion in Melbourne he was reported to have preached before a congregation of some 1,500). Yet despite his obvious popularity, during his time in Australia, Buchanan proved something of a controversial figure within church circles. Presbyterian traditionalists were uneasy with his evangelical style and his populist leanings, and at one point he was also criticised for ignoring the more mundane aspects of his ministry. Buchanan's problematic relationship with church traditionalists appears to have come to a head in 1894, the year in which he served as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland, when his position on theological issues attracted greater scrutiny. His inaugural Moderator's address, which he used to espouse the 'new theology', left him vulnerable to attack from critics who openly accused him of heresy, and from about this point on he was dogged by controversy.
During his time in Queensland, Buchanan quickly emerged as a public figure of some standing, and he became well known within the wider community for his regular fund-raising lectures, which he gave in both Brisbane and the regional centres, on a diverse range of religious, historical, scientific, etc. subjects. In Brisbane, Buchanan was also active within literary and educational circles, and at various points served on the Brisbane School of Arts committee and the University Extension Movement council. He was also a member of the Brisbane Literary Circle. In 1897, Buchanan was nominated for the position of Queensland immigration lecturer to Britain, where he was to spend twelve months touring and giving lectures to prospective immigrants. However his appointment appears to have been vetoed by the Queensland Colonial Secretary, Horace Tozer.
Details of Buchanan's life after leaving Australia remain to be verified. His obituary in the Chicago Baha'i magazine Star of the West indicates that at one point he travelled to the Belgian Congo, where he reported on the atrocities of the colonial regime for a British newspaper syndicate. He also appears to have spent a number of years at Cape Town, South Africa. He returned to the United States in ca. 1911, and settled in Portland, Oregon. In his later years Buchanan became something of a mystic, and developed an interest in the Baha'i faith.
