Richard Ballantyne: Founder of the Latter-day Saint Sunday School (1849)

Richard Ballantyne (1817–1898) was a Scottish Latter-day Saint convert who, after gathering to the Salt Lake Valley, founded what became the Sunday School of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In December 1849, troubled that the children of the Fifteenth Ward had no place to learn the gospel on the Sabbath, Brother Ballantyne gathered them together and began teaching them from the scriptures—the first Latter-day Saint Sunday School. From that small beginning in one Salt Lake ward grew a worldwide organization that has taught the gospel to generations of children. Richard Ballantyne's quiet initiative is a faith-promoting reminder that the Lord's great works often begin when one faithful Saint simply sees a need and, in obedience, sets out to meet it.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Sunday School - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints):

Richard Ballantyne, who had organized a Presbyterian Sunday school in Scotland before joining the Church, considered it a duty to teach the gospel to children in a formal setting. He built a room in his house with wooden benches and gathered 50 children there on December 9, 1849, to teach them from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. By 1850 classes moved to the recently completed Salt Lake City 14th Ward meetinghouse. Ballantyne was called as superintendent of the school, and children were divided into smaller classes.