James Lumsden (1810–1875) commenced his ministerial career in Inverbrothock Parish Church. He was born at Dysart, in Fife, and was the eldest of a family of three sons and two daughters. Lumsden entered University of Aberdeen at age of 14, and was a student of Thomas Chalmers. He entered the Divinity Hall in 1828, and carried off the first prize in the Hebrew class. Licensed in the Church of Scotland in 1831, he served at Inverbrothock and later was called to Barry in 1838. He joined the Disruption of 1843.
Dr. Chalmers said Lumsden was one “having such enduring worth that he will surely and rapidly grow in the estimation of any people among whom he may be settled, by sound judgment, by scriptural theology, and withal by persevering assiduity in the labour of Christian usefulness.” He served at Barry Free Church until 1856, when he became professor at the Free Church College in Aberdeen, and became principal in 1864. He received the D.D. at St. Andrews University in 1869. Some of his old parishioners bore testimony to the highly doctrinal, argumentative, and logical style of his sermons. These were prepared with great care, and delivered from memory. It was no uncommon occurrence on a Saturday afternoon to have overheard him, in some sequestered corner, rehearsing his Sabbath sermon with considerable vehemence to the trees and bushes.