Presbyterian minister, founder and superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.
Between 1913 and 1927 Flynn's magazine, the Inlander, led his battle for a 'brighter bush'. His photographs, documents, statistics, maps and articles publicized the needs of the people and northern Australia's potential for development, which he argued could only be effected by providing security for women and children. He did not overlook Aboriginals, and devoted the first issue of the 1915 Inlander to photographs and stories of the plight of the fringe-dwellers in particular. (Graeme Bucknall, 'Flynn, John (1880 - 1951)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, Melbourne University Press, 1981, pp 531-534.)
