Minister's son

The minister's son is relatively rare in numbers (less than one in many tens of thousands), yet extraordinarily productive in accomplishment.

Some examples of minister's sons are:

• Niels Abel, one of the greatest mathematicians, son of a Norwegian pastor.
• Alex Briley, chart-topping singer: a minister's son who learned to sing in church from an early age.
• Gordon Brown, Labour Party Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, son of a Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister.
• Hugh Dennis, comedian and former agent for the Security Service, son of the bishop of St Edmundsbury
• Leonhard Euler, the most prolific mathematician ever, son of a Calvinist pastor.
• Anthony Flew
• James Gamble, co-founder of Procter & Gamble
• Sir Nigel Gresley, one of the greatest steam locomotive designers
• William Hamilton, Irish mathematician and biggest contributor of mathematics to physics since Isaac Newton, raised by his uncle the Reverend James Hamilton.
• Captain William Kidd, pirate, hanged 1701, was the son of a Greenock minister.
• Isaac Newton, physicist, stepson of Anglican minister.
• Robert Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit, son of a Congregational minister.
• Sir Laurence Olivier(Lord Olivier), classical actor.
• J.C. Penney
• Bernhard Riemann, mathematician, son of a Lutheran pastor.
• Vincent Van Gogh
• The Wright Brothers
• Nicola Tesla
• President Woodrow Wilson
• Tim Westwood, well-known music journalist and motoring correspondent; son of the bishop of Peterborough

Achievement is even higher among children of missionaries. According to the organization Campus Crusade for Christ:

“

In a study listed in Who's Who, it took 5,000 Presbyterian ministers to produce one child listed in Who's Who. Among lawyers the ratio was 5,000 to 1; dentists 2,500 to 1. But for every seven Christian missionary families from the United States, one of their children would be listed in Who's Who.

”