He was born in
Perth. He was brought up, from the age of four, in
Glasgow where his father was a
Church of Scotland Minister. This clerical background extends to two uncles, both ministers who 'came out' in the
disruption of 1843, both later serving terms as
Moderator of the
Free Church General Assembly. From
Glasgow Academy Bonar graduated MA in Mental Philosophy from
Glasgow University in 1874. He followed the same lengthy undergraduate career that
Adam Smith pursued more than a century before gaining a
Snell Exhibition to
Balliol College, Oxford from which he graduated with a first in 1877. A major early influence was the moral philosopher,
Edward Caird: first as Professor at Glasgow and then as Master of Balliol. Together with his family background that influence helps explain Bonar's decision to spend the next three years teaching economics in the newly established
University Extension Movement in the
East End of London. In 1881 he began a career in the civil service only retiring (to live in Hampstead) from his final position, as Deputy Manager of the Ottawa branch of the
Royal mint, in 1919 at the age of 67. In 1886, with
J. H. Muirhead and others, Bonar was instrumental in establishing the London Ethical Society, the first ethical society in the UK. Although the LES became the London School of Ethics and Philosophy in 1897 (which was later absorbed in the
London School of Economics), it was the first of a growing number of
ethical societies which prompted the formation of the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896, known today as
Humanists UK. He was awarded an LLD from Glasgow University in 1887, and an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1935. ==Major publications==