Faber attended the grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835, he obtained a scholarship at University College. In 1836, he won the Newdigate Prize for a poem on "The Knights of St John," which elicited special praise from Keble. Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne. He was an eloquent preacher, and a man of great charm of character. It is mainly as a hymn-writer, however, that Faber is remembered.