Cecil Frances Humphreys was born at 25 Eccles Street, Dublin, and lived in Miltown House, county Tyrone, Ireland, beginning in 1833. She married the Right Reverend W. Alexander, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, in 1850. She wrote nearly 400 hymns, among which her work for children established her reputation as a poet. See Selected Poems of William Alexander, Archbishop of Armagh, 1896-1911, and Cecil Frances Alexander, edited A. P. Graves (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1930; PR 4004 A12A6 1930 Robarts Library).

• Litvack, Leon. "Alexander, Cecil Frances (1818-1895)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.