John William Arthur OBE (1881, Glasgow – 1952, Edinburgh) was a medical missionary and Church of Scotland minister who served in British East Africa (Kenya) from 1907 to 1937.

Arthur's zeal and capacity for work led to him being honoured by the Kikuyu with the tribal name Rigitari ("Doctor").

Arthur came to be accepted as one of the foremost spokesmen of missionary opinion in East Africa and worked enthusiastically for inter-mission co-operation.

Following several initial efforts at forging missionary co-operation, Arthur arranged for a conference to take place at Kikuyu in 1913 for discussions on this subject.

During the First World War, Arthur fiercely opposed the conscription of African members of the mission by the British Army as porters.

When he saw that conscription was inevitable, he organised the Kikuyu Mission Volunteer Carrier Corps for service in German East Africa and became its commanding officer, with the rank of captain.

Historians note that the Kikuyu Mission volunteers suffered the lowest rate of casualties of any unit in the East Africa Forces, which is largely attributed to Arthur's care for his men.

He also joined other Church of Scotland missionaries in working on the margins of one of the early African independence movements, the Kikuyu Association, led by Harry Thuku.

He was a close advisor to J. H. Oldham and was deeply involved in the conference in London in 1923 that declared the paramountcy of African interests in Kenya.

Arthur was particularly concerned with problems of education, land ownership and labour reforms, and was involved in debates over the practice of female genital mutilation amongst the indigenous population.

In the 1920s he was prominent in the leadership of a group of missionaries and others who succeeded in convincing the British government to open up education not only for Kenyans, but for Africans in all the colonies.

This practice was an ancient tradition of the Kikuyu tribe, who constituted the majority membership of the Church of Scotland Mission in Kenya.

He was appalled by the needless suffering inflicted upon woman by cliterodectomy, and was especially outraged by the common incidence of forced FGM upon girls.

Arthur's views were almost universally shared by the leaders of all the mission agencies operating in Kenya at that time, but many settlers and government officials believed he was stirring up an unnecessary controversy amongst the Kikuyu.

Jomo Kenyatta, a leading KCA member, returned to Kenya from the UK during the circumcision controversy, and spoke out vehemently against Arthur.

Under a barrage of criticism, Arthur resigned from the Legislative Council and his reputation in Government circles as a voice of African interests was irreversibly damaged.

The Kenya Government Department of Native Affairs were scathing in their assessment of the FGM controversy, describing Arthur as being "fanatical" in his views.

Arthur retired in April 1937 and acted for a period as personal assistant at St Columba's (Church of Scotland), Pont Street, London.