William M. Runyan (1870–1957) was a Christian composer from the United States who wrote the music to the well-known hymn Great Is Thy Faithfulness. In 1870, William Marion Runyan was born in Marion, New York to a Methodist minister Rev. William White Runyan (born 1828) and his wife Hannah (Orcutt) Runyan (born 1839). At age fourteen, Runyan and his family moved to Marion, Kansas. As a youth, Runyan served as a church organist and graduated from Marion High School in Kansas. Runyan was ordained as a Methodist minister at age twenty-one and then pastored various congregations in Kansas.