John Kelman was a United Free Church of Scotland minister. He studied at Edinburgh University and New College.
Kelman was minister at the New North Free Church in Edinburgh and at Free St. George's and then served as a chaplain on the Western Front before going to New York to the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church. He returned to Britain four years later to St. Andrew's United Reformed Church in Hampstead. Two years later he resigned and returned to Edinburgh, where he died in 1929.
Kelman was an associate of Patrick Geddes and a founding member of the Outlook Tower Committee.