James Skinner

Born in Forfar, Scotland, on 23 June 1818, he came from a strongly ecclesiastical family: his father was John Skinner, dean of Dunkeld and Dunblane, and his grandfather was Bishop John Skinner. He studied first at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and then at Durham, where he was among the university's early students and graduated in the 1830s.

Skinner became an Anglican minister and was also known as an author and hymn-writer. Sources connected with his work describe him as a Church of England clergyman whose published writing included religious and theological pieces such as A Tract for the Times: The Church and the Census.

He died on 29 December 1881 at Bath, England. A memoir about his life appeared soon afterward, and later reference works remembered him chiefly for his ministry, devotional writing, and hymns.