The Expositor’s Bible: A Complete Exposition of The Bible, in Six Volumes

Sir William Robertson Nicoll (1851–1923), a religious journalist, was born into the Free Church of Scotland manse at Auchindoir, Aberdeenshire. Nicoll’s reading habits began early among his minister father’s seventeen thousand volumes. William graduated from Aberdeen (1870), and after theological training in his church’s divinity hall, he served parishes at Dufftown (1874–1877) and Kelso (1877–1885) and established his reputation as a preacher. When ill health forced his resignation from the ministry, he went to London and began his editorship of The Expositor (1885) and the British Weekly (1886), posts which he held for the rest of his life. His aim in the latter publication was to handle everything in a Christian spirit. In 1896 he visited America with his friend Sir J. M. Barrie, and he maintained a fruitful correspondence with many American writers, politicians, and preachers. He engaged increasingly in political controversies, was a friend of Lloyd George with whose social legislation he identified himself, and helped overcome Nonconformist pacifist views in World War II. Like a good Free Kirkman, Nicoll was a formidable foe of Erastianism. He made the British Weekly widely influential, published several religious and secular books, edited The Expositor’s Greek Testament, was knighted (1909), and was made a companion of honor (a prestigious order) two years before his death. (Taken from Who’s Who in Christian History.)