John Keble

Born in 1792, John Keble was an English Anglican priest, poet, and scholar best remembered as one of the leading figures of the Oxford Movement. He studied at Oxford, where his learning and religious influence made a lasting mark, and Keble College was later named in his honor.

He became especially famous for The Christian Year, a book of poems arranged around the Sundays and feast days of the church calendar. Its reflective, lyrical style spoke to many readers and helped make him one of the best-known religious poets of his time.

Keble spent much of his later life as a parish priest in Hursley, Hampshire, where he continued to write and serve the church until his death in 1866. His work still stands out for its calm spiritual seriousness, love of worship, and sense that faith belongs in the rhythm of ordinary life.