Robert Alexander Falconer was a Canadian clergyman and educator. Son of a Presbyterian minister, he won a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh graduating in 1889. He pursued postgraduate work at Leipzig, Berlin and Marburg, Germany.In 1892 he was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada and took up a lectureship in New Testament Greek at Pine Hill Divinity Hall, Halifax. Becoming a professor there in 1895, he was appointed principal in 1904. In 1907 he became president of the University of Toronto and stayed in that position for 25 years.
Falconer was active in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. He was one of those who sought to bring his denomination into union with Canada's Methodists and Congregationalists resulting in the formation of the United Church of Canada in 1925.
Falconer was was much in demand as a public speaker and wrote several books on current affairs, including 'The German Tragedy and its Meaning for Canada' (1915), 'Idealism in National Character' (1920) and 'The United States as a Neighbour' (1926). After his retirement from the University of Toronto in 1932, he continued his scholarly work, producing 'Pastoral Epistles', his most notable work of religious scholarship in 1937.
He died in Toronto on 4 November 1843 at age 76.