William Herbert Perry Faunce (1859-1930) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and died in Providence, Rhode Island. He was a Baptist clergyman and educator. He graduated from Brown University (where he then taught mathematics for a year) in Providence in 1880, and from Newton Theological Seminary in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1884. That same year, he married Sarah Rogers Edson in Lynn, Massachusetts. Faunce was pastor of the State Street Baptist Church of Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1884 to 1889 before becoming pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of New York City, New York, from 1889 to 1899. He lectured at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago during the 1896-1897 school year, and in 1898-1899 he was a member of the board of resident preachers of Harvard University. In 1899, he became the ninth president of Brown University, and his administration would span thirty years, the longest presidential administration in Brown's history. He was a lecturer at Yale University during the 1907-08 school year and was prominent in the work of the Religious Education Association. His writings include numerous contributions, chiefly to religious periodicals, as well as The Educational Ideal in the Ministry (1909) and What Does Christianity Mean? (1912). Although both Faunce and his wife expressed an interest in studying with Mary Baker Eddy, there is no record of either of them doing so.

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