John Armour was a Presbyterian Minister, who served in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Between 1918 and 1920 he worked with the Australian Inland Mission in central Australia. He subsequently used his knowledge of this location as a setting for two of his novels, The Spell of the Inland: A Romance of Central Australia and Burning Air. His other works include The Story of Christianity (1952) and a book of sermons on the Reformation (1925).