William Ralph Inge was known to the public as 'The Gloomy Dean' for the sharp cultural criticism of his columns in the Evening Standard. He was a passionate Christian Platonist known in the academy for his work on mysticism, Plotinus and a synthesis of Christianity and Platonism.William Ralph Inge was born 6 June 1860 in Crayke, Yorkshire, England, into a family of clerics. His father was an Anglican curate and provost of Worcester College, Oxford, while his mother's father was the Archdeacon of Cleveland. After education at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, Inge returned to his alma mater as Assistant Master at Eton in 1884. The year 1888 marked the beginning of Inge's twin paths of scholar and churchman as he was elected Fellow and Tutor at Hertford College, Oxford, and ordained Deacon in the Church of England. His early work at Oxford centered on Christian mysticism, and his Bampton Lectures on the same theme were published in 1899.Inge remained at Oxford until 1905, when he became vicar of All Saints' Church, Knightsbridge.

In 1907 Inge was installed as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Fellow of Jesus College at Cambridge, where he taught until becoming Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1911. Inge delivered his two sets of Gifford Lectures on 'The Philosophy of Plotinus' in 1917-1918 while at St Paul's. He retired in 1934 to a life of writing and study. Inge married Mary Catharine Spooner in 1904, and they had three children. He delivered a number of lectureships in the United Kingdom and the United States and received honorary degrees from the universities of Aberdeen, Durham, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Oxford and St. Andrews. He died 26 February 1954.