John Philip (14 April 1775 – 27 August 1851), was a missionary in South Africa. Philip was born at Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland to a local schoolmaster. After starting as an apprentice to a linen draper in Leven, and working as a clerk in Dundee, he entered the Wesleyan theological college at Hoxton, and in 1804 was appointed minister of the first Scottish Congregational chapel in Aberdeen. On 24 September 1809 he married Jane Ross, the daughter of a prosperous Aberdeen engineer; they had seven children. His daughter, Elizabeth (Eliza), married John Fairbairn, the renowned educator, politician and financier, on 24 May 1831.