James Brotherston Laughton was a school teacher and Presbyterian minister. He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, and before coming to Australia had been employed as a tutor. Laughton was the editor of the Manx Sun in the early 1840s and wrote a tourists' guide to the Isle of Man in 1842. On 3 April 1843, he married Jane Looney at Braddan and shortly afterwards emigrated to Australia.
On arriving in Sydney, Laughton appears to have been briefly connected with the Sydney Record and the Sentinel and, in November 1843, he established a private evening school. In January 1844, Laughton also opened a Day School for boys and girls offering instruction in 'all the branches of a useful Education'. The school also provided religious instruction ('in accordance with the principles of the Church of England') on a Saturday, 'after the secular business of the school', for those pupils whose parents wished them to remain (Sydney Record, 1.16 (1844): 125).
Laughton later took up a position as a teacher at the Sydney College, where he was subsequently appointed acting headmaster. He remained at the Sydney College until 1846, when he resigned to conduct his own school. Insolvency proceedings were launched against Laughton in October 1846. At that time he had debts amounting to nearly 450 pounds and assets of only 124 pounds (Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, (10 October 1846): 2).
In 1850 Laughton entered the Presbyterian Church, and then served as a minister in various New South Wales country locations until his retirement in March 1883. He was Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in New South Wales in 1870, and was also a member of the Council of St. Andrew's College, at the University of Sydney.
