Frederick William Faber was born on June 28, 1814 at Calverley in Yorkshire to an Anglican Faber family. Educated at Oxford, Frederick became Anglican priest in 1839 and served as Anglican vicar of Elton.
In 1845, Frederick converted to Catholicism — following the Newman-Barberi conversion (see the Bl. Dominic Barberi entry). Ordained Catholic priest in 1847, Frederick joined John Henry Newman's nascent Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England.
In 1849, Frederick founded the London Oratory at Brompton — the London Catholic community of the Oratorian congregation that would become the Brompton Oratory.
Frederick became the most popular Catholic hymn writer of the 19th-century English Catholic revival — composing 'Faith of Our Fathers' (1849, institutionally the anthem of the English Catholic tradition), 'Sweet Sacrament Divine', 'O Come and Mourn with Me Awhile', and multiple additional Catholic hymns that would shape the English Catholic hymnody tradition.
He died at London on September 26, 1863 at the age of 49.