William Miller CIE (13 January 1838 – July 1923) was a Scottish educationalist and Free Church of Scotland missionary to Madras.

[2][4][5][8] He not only erected great buildings for the college, chiefly by his own gifts and those of his brother Alexander Miller, but also garnered support and sponsorship from a group of loyal and able men, both Indian and British.

His college hostels were first of their kind in South India—he used these to train future government officials and members of municipal and local boards in the art of conducting public business and running democracy.

Miller is credited for opening hostels, several academic and cultural associations, that ultimately shaped Madras Christian College into a premier educational institution in South Asia.

He later opened up the institution for Hindu students to a Christward direction through education, rather than just conversion of their faith – Vengal Chakkarai Chetty, P. Chenchiah, and many more were in fact attracted to Christianity under the influence of Miller.

Miller, who is considered as the pioneer of Fulfillment theology, in his Scottish Missions in India published in 1868 noted that:Hinduism is emphatically a system, a mighty mass, a living unity and power, not only embracing, but wielding into one, the unnumbered millions by whom it is professed, as no other faith in the world does now, or probably has ever done.

[3] Miller felt that educational institutes in India could not be used as places for conversion; instead, as avenues for preparing the Hindus in a Christian direction – Preparatio evangelica.

According to Eric J. Sharpe, professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, J. N. Farquhar's work on Fulfillment theology in Bengal was built on foundations originally laid in Madras.

[4] Joshua Kalapati and Ambrose Jeyasekaran, Life and Legacy of Madras Christian College (1837-1978), Chennai: Zha Communications, 2010