author
W. D. (William Dool) Killen
1806–1902
A leading Irish Presbyterian minister and historian, he spent decades teaching church history in Belfast and writing books that helped preserve the story of Presbyterian life in Ireland. His long career made him one of the best-known religious scholars of his tradition in the nineteenth century.
2 Audiobooks
The Ancient Church: Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution
by W. D. (William Dool) Killen
The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious: A Reply to the Right Rev. Dr. Lightfoot
by W. D. (William Dool) Killen
About the author
Born in Ballymena in 1806, William Dool Killen was educated at the Belfast Academical Institution and entered the Presbyterian ministry while still a young man. He served first in Raphoe, County Donegal, before moving into academic life, where his gifts as a teacher and writer became widely known.
Killen is best remembered as a professor of church history at the Presbyterian College in Belfast, a post he held for many years, and later as president of the college. Alongside his ministry and teaching, he wrote extensively on ecclesiastical and Irish Presbyterian history, producing works that were valued for their learning and for the way they gathered together material that might otherwise have been lost.
He lived an unusually long life, dying in 1902, and remained active as an author into old age. For readers interested in religion, Ireland, or the history of Protestant churches, his work offers a window into the intellectual and church life of the nineteenth century.