Cecil Frances Alexander

ALEXANDER, Cecil Frances. b. Dublin, April 1818, exact date unknown; d. Derry, 12 October 1895. She was the daughter of Major John Humphreys, a distinguished former soldier who had served in the Napoleonic Wars, and his wife Elizabeth. Her father became agent to the Earl of Wicklow in 1825, and the family were closely associated with the Protestant aristocracy of Ireland. Fanny, as she was known to her family, was well educated and religious, much influenced by figures such as John Keble* and Walter Farquhar Hook*, the vicar of Leeds. She published a book for Sunday-school teachers, Verses for Holy Seasons (1846), with a preface by Hook, and Hymns for Little Children (1848), with an...